Sunday, June 29, 2008
Ask the Professor
Yale University professor Jonathan Spence, a leading scholar of China, discusses the future of China.
The West’s consensus view is that so long as the economy keeps hauling millions of people out of poverty, the Communist Party can survive in power.
Its challenges are enormous. Twenty million people enter the job market each year and need to be found work.
A recent increase in local-level protests suggests millions more feel left behind by growth so far, and resentful. There is simmering popular anger about official corruption and environmental damage.
Yet the biggest challenge will be political.
Can China’s authoritarian leaders, who have risen to the pinnacle of a one-party state, be prevailed upon to accept competing visions of how the country should be governed, and even share power?
And can they do so before the tensions being stoked by such unprecedented social and economic upheaval become overwhelming?
Prof Spence does not ignore the risks, but sees more grounds for optimism.
He points to the ballooning number of university graduates, the emergence of grassroots civil groups, and the vast improvement in the education levels of top leaders as evidence that change will have to come.
“The whole idea of representation is being explored. Remember China had a hard time with representative government, which fell apart under the warlord era [in 1915].
“China is backtracking into the past, looking for ways of making changes. We could wish they changed much faster, but we should be glad they are changing at the speed they are,” he says.
Happy people don’t revolt. The government has to keep the people happy, with continued prosperity and security. I also thought this observation was interesting.
Mr Spence hints that while British traders were there first, it is now only the US which realises China’s future potential.
“In the UK, one gets the sense that people think it’s just another country,” he says.
This is fascinating considering that many European nations, including the UK, are going to boycott the opening ceremonies. Bush has said he will attend, and I’ve written that I think this is an exceptionally good idea. Ignore China at your peril.
