M.D. Nalapat
Beijing, China —
Judging by the boost given to exports from China and the flow of technology to
that country from 1993 to 2000, when Bill Clinton was president of the United
States, it is small wonder that even low-income ethnic Chinese in San Francisco
and New York felt compelled to contribute to Hillary Clinton's 2008
presidential election campaign.
Although
Clinton, now U.S. secretary of state, makes the obligatory warm references to
the other giant of Asia, India, these seem to be motivated less by conviction
than by awareness of the muscular Indian-American lobby in Washington, D.C.
As the junior
senator from New York, Clinton led the effort to get India to concede to China
a nuclear monopoly in Asia, by giving up its own weapons-development program.
She was visibly unhelpful in promoting a policy of closer defense and
technology cooperation with India, besides fiercely opposing the India-U.S.
nuclear agreement, along with the junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.
The Clintons
have never hidden their affinity for Europeanist policy wonks such as Strobe
Talbott or Richard Holbrook, who regard only the European countries as
"natural partners" of the United States. They are, of course, wrong.
The United
States is not a European country transplanted in North America, but a
quadricontinental power that has elements of Europe, Asia, Africa and South
America in its cultural DNA. Indeed, such heterogeneity is the reason why
"U.S. culture" – a pair of words that many regard as an oxymoron –
has had the same powerful impact on the world as the English language did
during the 19th-century heyday of the British Empire.
Since the end of
World War II, U.S. policy has focused on retaining that country's primacy in
world affairs. That status is now being challenged not by a loose confederation
such as the European Union, but by the other threat to the West – besides
Islamic radicalism – identified by U.S. political scientist Samuel Huntington.
This is China.
Since former
Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping freed large sectors of his country’s economy from
the Maoist straitjacket, starting in the late 1970s, the country has developed
into the second-biggest power on the globe, catching up rapidly with the United
States in gross output. This progress has come on the backs of Chinese workers,
who are overwhelmingly underpaid and overworked, due to pressure from
international customers on their Chinese suppliers to constantly cut costs.
Because China
lacks a "brand boost," its products must be sold through Western
labels, at huge profits for U.S. and EU firms. Had the Chinese Communist Party
bought up smaller U.S. and EU companies and developed their brands through an
aggressive advertising campaign, China would have secured a much higher return
on its labor than it does at present.
Indeed, the
Chinese worker has ensured low inflation and higher living standards for people
in the West in exchange for the country being vilified as an "economic
threat."
Although the CCP
flaunts itself as the party of "peasants and workers," since the
1990s the party is much more at home with billionaires and millionaires than it
is with even the middle class. Whether in Taiwan – where Lien Chan, the
super-rich chairman emeritus of the Kuomintang party is preferred to the
middle-class (and honest) current President Ma Ying-jeou – or within the Chinese
diaspora and across the world, CCP bigwigs regard only the wealthy as suitable
partners.
It is small
wonder that they treat their own workers with contempt, allowing employers to
hire them on subsistence wages with near-zero social security.
For a Chinese
family from the 93 percent of the population that is outside the
privilegentsia, serious illness can mean economic ruin. In additional to basic
charges, many doctors insist on undeclared fees and hospitals charge high
prices for medicines. The situation is no better in schools and colleges, with
teachers reserving their attention for those students able to pay private
tuition fees.
In the Chinese
countryside, not only are health and educational facilities abysmal, but
peasants often face confiscation of their land at unfair prices to meet the
appetite for profit of land developers, almost all of whom are given patronage
by CCP bigwigs in national, provincial and local governments. The "workers’
paradise" has now become the "billionaires heaven,” courtesy of the
Chinese Communist Party. Not surprisingly, many of the Party’s younger members
are unfamiliar with Karl Marx and the "Communist Manifesto."
However, given
the brute power of the communist state, it will be difficult for public anger
to reach levels that threaten the present regime. Reform is unlikely unless a
Gorbachev-style figure emerges at the top of the Party hierarchy. Given the
fate of Russia after it passed from the Communist Party to the Yeltsinist
mafias, few within the upper ranks of the CCP would consider following the
example of former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev.
Certainly
President Hu Jintao is conservative, as is the majority within his Standing
Committee. Both the Soviet collapse and the escalation in public unrest that
followed former President Zhao Ziyang’s experiment in liberalism in 1989 have
ensured that political change remains almost nonexistent. In the absence of a
catastrophic fall in the growth rate, there is unlikely to be sufficient
momentum to sustain a "color revolution" in China.
The CCP has cast
itself in the role of defender of the majority Han population of China, weaving
an ideology of Han exceptionalism that is fueling nationalism based not on
citizenship but on ethnicity. This has meant short shrift to minority
populations such as the Uighurs and Tibetans, who find themselves much weaker
in influence than the Han even in their home regions.
An example is
the fact that the Han leadership of the CCP in Xinjiang – in theory a Uighur
autonomous region – has escaped censure or dismissal, despite its evident
mishandling of the unrest there in early July. In contrast, there has been a
winnowing out of the Uighur cadre seen as too prone to ethnic values and
identity. Ironically, these are the very qualities that are encouraged by the
CCP within the majority Han population.
Rapid economic
growth – in the estimate of this columnist, a minimum of 9 percent – is
essential for the CCP to retain its "mandate of heaven" and continue
to rule without major convulsions. But this is not enough. There must be a much
more equitable spread of the social security blanket, which at present covers
just 13 percent of the population.
During the past
decade, public expressions of outrage at the cozy relationship between local
CCP leaders and financial vested interests – leading to the expropriation of
land and exploitation of workers – have risen so that major protests take place
almost every week. News of such action is suppressed and care is taken to
prevent contact between disaffected groups, so they have thus far not seriously
affected the CCP’s grip on power.
However, the
efficiency of the party machinery has been diminishing, as has its morale,
mainly because of graft and careerism at the higher levels. President Hu
Jintao's efforts to snuff out these tendencies have not met conspicuous
success.
Will the CCP
once again "manage contradictions" within China sufficiently to
retain its relevance into the new century? Thus far the party has shown an
ability to transform itself to meet emerging conditions. However, as the speed
of change within the Chinese economy and society accelerates this task is
becoming much more difficult.
Whoever succeeds
Hu Jintao in 2012 will need both brilliance and luck to navigate the CCP to
safety in the increasingly treacherous waters of public hardship and political
greed. However, the prize for success will be the ability to challenge the
United States for global primacy well before the close of the first half of the
present century.
-(Professor M.D. Nalapat is vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced
Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair, and professor of geopolitics at Manipal
University. ©Copyright M.D. Nalapat.)
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