Would Chinese Democracy be a Good Thing?

This article highlights on ongoing debate over China and human rights. The thing is, I'm not certain that China is truly ready to be a viable democracy. Though the industrial elites on the East Coast are liberal and educated, what about the vast swarm of humanity that is the Chinese peasant? I'm not certain that China is even capable of becoming a democracy before it has raised the education standards for the majority of its populace. Worse, if suddenly all of China felt entitled, it would mean a disaster for the rest of the world. Imagine if the Chinese consumed as the United States does today - there wouldn't be enough resources to go around. For now, China probably has no choice - it has to remain authoritarian in order to guarantee its security. But those are my two cents, what are yours?

The US was in the same situation over 230 years ago. Highly illiterate voter base, wealthy East Coast "elite", you know the drill. We made it work.

edited 8th Oct '10 10:11:47 AM by MajorTom

Worse, if suddenly all of China felt entitled, it would mean a disaster for the rest of the world. Imagine if the Chinese consumed as the United States does today - there wouldn't be enough resources to go around.

That's not necessarily something that will or won't happen without Democracy.

How likely is it that the majority of Chinese people will get the "education standard" that would make it "capable" of handling democracy?

(Those scare quotes aren't me disagreeing or not, I'm just asking your opinion.)

The resource consumption issue is a significant one, though. The living standards in the West are the way they are because we are all "elite" in comparison to most of the world. Another billion people trying to get in on those living standards all at once is not something anyone is equipped to handle.

How likely is it that the majority of Chinese people will get the "education standard" that would make it "capable" of handling democracy?

Basic literacy seems like a good guidepost. Perhaps have potential voters prove themselves capable of passing a basic literacy test and a political science exam.

As for our own American history, at first not very many people could vote - only people white men who could prove that they owned land could vote, but over time more and more people were accepted into the voting process. I think that something similar to this would work in China, with a gradual shift to full-on democracy that begins with "let the literati vote" and ends with "everybody can vote".

edited 8th Oct '10 10:21:37 AM by Bioelectricclam

Eh, the album wasn't that great.

Does anyone know how things work in India? They'd be my first model for a democratic China, given that they're the only ones remotely in the same ballpark wrt population.

edited 8th Oct '10 1:01:26 PM by Ponicalica

Don't think democracy would ever work in china but that doesn't mean we have to condone human rights violations and lying to your populace.

I don't know about you, but many of those peasants are trying very hard not to be destitute right now. I think education is a bit low on their list of priorities.

^ it's not as low a priority as you think. Education for your children has always been seen as the path out of poverty and the way to elevate their social class. If you offer them free education, almost everyone will jump at the chance to get their kids in. Of course, education does not necessarily mean liberal, western style education.

edited 8th Oct '10 6:37:05 PM by nightwyrm_zero

Why wouldn't democracy work in China? People don't have to be literate, or well off, or have western values in order to want to empower themselves. Democracy would work perfectly well in China, and anywhere else, if the majority of people who live there wanted it to. People get the type of government they believe they deserve, and right now the Chinese seem content with the Communist Party running things, and probably wont change their minds about that unless the standard of living stops improving. Which, you know, must inevitably happen at some point...

Eh, the album wasn't that great.

It exceeded my expectations.

Not that I think highly of Axl.

@Ponicalica: India was my first thought as well, with Indonesia following a ways behind. India is indeed a miserable, striated and terribly unjust place, much like democratic China would be, but it's peaceful. Far less need to worry about concentration camps, or a media stranglehold, or jackbooted thugs, or completely unaccountable corruption, or intensive militarism. If India ever got its economic act together, they'd basically be home free, not so for China.

"I don't know about you, but many of those peasants are trying very hard not to be destitute right now. I think education is a bit low on their list of priorities."

Education is arguably the number one thing you need to empower yourself. Look at say Botswana for a similar situation, and to directly see just how important getting that education is if you want to move up in the world.

Like all things, if it is implemented too quickly, in a revolutionary, forced style, the results will most likely be bad. If it is done gradually, evolving from existing structures with reforms made as and when they are recognised and acted on, the results will be far more positive.

You also need to work out how a democracy will work under the guidance of an unprecedented 1.3 billion people.

Since I'm a long-haired rock fan, I'll give an answer to the issue based on my experience with a similar issue involving Guns N Roses.

First everyone would be amazed that it finally happened. It would be hailed as an amazing thing. Then it would slowly fade into nothingness, being overshadowed by something involving magnetic death.

It really wasn't that good anyway (it was only popular because it took forever to finally come out and Dr. Pepper gave out free stuff as a result)

edited 12th Oct '10 8:35:19 PM by Malph

Democracy would work but it'd have to be brought in slowly, much like how they brought in capitalism slowly and now they have time to deal with the consequences (such as the rich poor divide that has grown).

I would say that education is the foundation upon which you can build a democracy. You don't want to have a "test" for who can become a citizen, just a gradual opening of elections. Right now in China, elections only occur at the municipal level and for the People's Congress, largely seen as a rubber stamp committee (like say the senate in most parliamentary systems in western countries). They're not powerless but neither can they act without approval from the central authority.

As China has been increasing education spending by 50+% year over year since premier Wen Jiabao has been in charge, I think they're well on their way to providing universal education.

As for the remark on China's militarism, when all items in their budget grow by 50% but military budget grows only by 12% or less, I'm not sure what militarism you are talking about. Their military spending in terms of GDP is less than half the NATO average, and actually the only country that spends less, by rate, than them is Canada. They also have peacekeepers in most UN operations, and will hopefully one day, start to breach through all European numbers and become more like India/Pakistan/Nepal/Bangledesh (each of those countries provide almost ten thousand peacekeepers each and make up the majority of the UN forces). The real issue is that if you let democracy flow in, the highly angry, ignorant, redneck and nationalist peasant population is going to be chanting "death to America/Japan" every day for any slight and war will ensue. A lot of their censorship in the media blocks out almost all the negative things the west says about Chinese people and the country so that the west looks like the happiest friendliest people in the world.

Actually, from what I've heard, Chinese media coverage of the west is mostly of the Accentuate the Negative variety. Apparently, they had a field day with Katrina.

And for once, Major Tom is right. Back when the US was first created, most of the population were uneducated farmers. In fact, the Founding Fathers made a lot of decisions to ensure that power was concentrated in the hands of the wealthy elite. Fortunately, most of those have since been overturned.

edited 15th Oct '10 10:34:43 AM by storyyeller

^ Seems to have worked. Joe Six-pack as President might turn out badly, dpesite how much I like Tom Clancy's books.

Not to be too off topic, but everybody had a field day with Katrina. Especially Canada was talking about how we sent rescue workers there before America did. We also deployed our third world military assistance team to the area, as well as some warships to bring in relief supplies.

I'm just edgy about starting off a democracy with restricted right to vote but if the roadmap is eventually for it to be an enshrined constitutional right, then I would be happy with that. Alternatively, I would also like to see an equivalently democratic system that does not require voting or perhaps a different style of voting. China has the unique opportunity to build off a lot of examples and I'm cautiously optimistic to see what they do with that kind of information.

Would Chinese democracy be a good thing?

No.

But it might be a less bad thing. Might. People have deified democracy and formed a mythology about how it is the greatest possible arrangement of human society, but all democracy is is a system in which the big mob gets to trample the little mob. If the big mob wants something good (like, say, a law against rape for an obvious example), then we can say that democracy yielded a good result in that case. But that neither precludes the possibility of the big mob demanding an unjust law, nor does it prove that democracy was necessary to produce anti-rape laws.

This doesn't mean that I think totalitarianism or despotism is better than democracy; I just think that democracy can be just as bad. The principle at the core is the same: might makes right. It makes no difference to the victims of the state whether they go to prison or die upon the order of a dictator, or because "the people" thought they should. There is no moral distinction between "do this or I will hurt you — I am the King" and "do this or we will hurt you — there are more of us than there are of you".

edited 15th Oct '10 8:56:56 PM by MacFall

^But the moral compass of a group is decided by the majority, so there is a moral difference. Specifically, the majority is "morally right" from their perspective.

Now we might not agree with them, but that's because we belong to a different majority that has been condition with different morals.

I hope that makes sense, it is way too late and I am so tired.

"passing a basic literacy test and a political science exam."

Considering the degree to which truth and fact can differ in political science it'd be way too easy to skew. Not to mention the way that literacy tests have been used against the poor and often minority groups.

That's not going to end well. It's happened before.

I'm too lazy to repost what I posted there here so.... http://www.zoklet.net/bbs/showthread.php?t=133867