Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=07/28/2001

TYPE=ON THE LINE

NUMBER=1-00972

TITLE=ON THE LINE: IS CHINA'S FUTURE COMMUNIST

EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY 619-0037

CONTENT=

THEME: UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE

Anncr: On the Line a discussion of United States policy and contemporary issues. This week, "Is China's Future Communist?" Here is your host, Robert Reilly.

Host: Hello and welcome to On the Line. China is changing but its ultimate direction remains unclear. The Chinese Communist party recently celebrated its eightieth anniversary with the announcement by President Jiang Zemin that private businessmen could now become party members. At the same time, Mr. Jiang warned that China must "resolutely resist the influence of the Western multiparty system." On July 13th, the International Olympic Committee awarded Beijing the 2008 Olympic games, and China is expected to join the World Trade Organization next year. Many hope that both these developments will encourage China to liberalize, but others are skeptical. Meanwhile, President Jiang Zemin has signed a friendship treaty with Russian President Vladimir Putin, aligning the two countries against a "unipolar world." That term is usually taken to refer to the U-S. China has been particularly vocal in denouncing U-S plans to deploy a system of missile defense.

Joining me today to discuss China's Communist system and its future are three experts. Arthur Waldron is a professor of international relations at the University of Pennsylvania and director of Asian policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. David Lampton is director of China studies at both Johns Hopkins University and at the Nixon Center. And Dimon Liu, originally from China, taught at the University of Hong Kong for fifteen years. She is now an independent human rights activist living in the United States. Welcome to the program.

Arthur Waldron, let's begin with the larger question of what will the role of Communism be in China's future?

Waldron: I think Communism has been incredibly destructive in every country that's adopted it. So, the longer China keeps the Communist system the more damage that's going to be done to China. In the last twenty years, Communism has been getting out of the way in the economy. But if they don't get out of the way in the political area and begin to allow the sorts of freedoms that most people in the world enjoy, then I think China faces a rather bleak future.

Host: David Lampton, to what extent is China still Communist?

Lampton: That's what I was thinking when you said what's the future of Communism, I was immediately led to the question: what's the present importance of Communism? I think as a party, as a political structure, it's, of course, very potent. But as an ideology, as a common moral discourse or for organizational legitimacy of the regime, I think Communism was largely dead some considerable period of time ago. I think one of the biggest questions China faces then is: what is going to be the new common moral framework for people in China to address their huge problems, and how are they going to carry on an organized, controlled discussion of their complicated future? They've got huge problems. They need some legitimate framework to carry that on in. So, I think China is at one of the most interesting points in its history, thinking about how to move beyond economic reform toward political reform.

Host: Dimon Liu, do you agree with that?

Liu: Communism is crumbling in China. But as we know, and we study history, we know that Communism is a very uncomfortable compromise between the social democrats and the fascists. When it crumbles, that fissure, that crack is going to open up. In the Soviet Union, it was the social democrats who had the support of the West. [Mikhail] Gorbachev was a social democrat. But in China, the social democrats have lost. Hu Yaobang and Zhou Ziyang. It is the fascists who are on top. Make no mistake, those in control are the fascists.

Host: Arthur Waldron, do you agree with that?

Waldron: I think that's really a very profound observation. Many of us are struck by the parallels between the present Chinese system and not so much Nazi Germany but something like Mussolini's Italy. The difference is that Italy's fascist system was eliminated by war and we never saw what a mature fascist system was like. The other thing I would say is the degree of repression in China right now is much, much higher than it ever was in Mussolini's Italy. But the ideological bankruptcy I think is quite comparable. And I think Dimon is right to point out that, although we all hope there will be some sort of peaceful change, there seems at the moment in power in China to be nobody of the quality of Gorbachev. I think Jiang Zemin is perhaps best compared to [Leonid] Brezhnev. There are a number of Chinese leaders who really understand the need for political change, but they are under either house arrest or they have become exiles. In 1989, after the massacre, the Communist party was basically cut in half, and its liberal wing was expelled. So, what you have now in the Chinese Communist party is the hard-line civilians, plus the security services, plus the military. And as much as I want to see peaceful democratic change in China, these are not my chosen candidates to lead it.

Host: David Lampton, what about that? Some of the things I mentioned, accession to the World Trade Organization, the Olympic imprimatur and the expectation that China is going to change internally to meet the standards that such an event signifies? Yet, as Arthur Waldron has just mentioned, there is more repression now than previously. How do you interpret those conflicting signals?

Lampton: I think China is a complicated place and there are many things going on simultaneously. I think my analysis would be fascism is not a very good way to think about what's going on in a couple of respects. First of all, I think there's political decentralization and economic decentralization that's moved the resources away from China's center toward the provinces, counties, and, let us say, semi-private hands. That means that, in some sense, China's government is quite weak in terms of its command of resources in China. Also in political terms, you have the development of local elections, and I don't want to for a minute suggest that I think those in and of themselves have moved very far in a democratic direction, but it's an incipient tendency in the system that I think, over time, will gain steam. And at the other end of the continuum, I don't think fascism is a very good analogy because of the degree of foreign involvement in China. China has a desire to move into international organizations and many organizations admittedly mostly in the economic, in the Bretton Woods institutions. China has been quite a responsible player for the most part in those. So, if we look too much at history and try to compare China to some of the political models that preceded it, unfortunate political models, there may be something to be gleaned from that. But I think, basically, China is a unique combination of having decentralized economic power within its own country and seeking integration into the global economy. I think both of those things are quite hopeful in my view.

Host: What about that Dimon Liu? Is China attempting to appear normal, or is it desiring to actually be normal?

Liu: If Mr. Lampton doesn't like the term fascist, how about mafioso capitalists who are in control? How can China be normal under mafioso government? They can pretend to be normal. Those international corporations can pretend that they are pro-democracy and pro-human rights but from how many countries can you get profits guaranteed? Can a mafioso always guarantee your profit margin by giving you an offer you cannot refuse?

Host: What about the source of legitimacy for these people if they are fascist or mafioso? They still proclaim themselves to be orthodox Communists.

Waldron: I think Secretary of State [Colin] Powell said something very important about this which was that being a member of the international community now at the beginning of the twenty-first century, when nearly every country in the world has citizens who enjoy the right to vote, enjoy civil liberties, and genuine justice, it's no longer simply a matter of being part of the economic system, which China is joining although there are some very serious problems with China's economy that aren't sometimes looked at closely. Powell said that China can never really be even a member of the international community fully until it begins to treat its citizens properly. And I would furthermore say I don't see how the Chinese government can survive unless it is willing to stand the test of an election. People say, of course, if they had elections, Jiang Zemin would win. And my response to that is, if that's the case, there's absolutely no excuse even for him to avoid election. Elected officials have legitimacy. The kinds of officials that exist in China have no legitimacy at all. In fact, the present leader is not even legitimate under the rules of China's own succession. Jiang Zemin and his group were put in at the time of the massacre in the way that was extra-legal, even under their own rules.

Host: I just want to take a moment to remind our audience that this is On The Line. And this week we're discussing the future of China with Arthur Waldron from the University of Pennsylvania; David Lampton from Johns Hopkins University; and human rights activist Dimon Liu. What about that, David Lampton? Obviously, if what Arthur Waldron has just said is true, there really is a tremendous succession crisis that China is facing.

Lampton: I think there is a succession problem in the wings. I think legitimacy, the basis of legitimacy, has changed as the world has evolved and democratic revolutions have succeeded in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and so on.

Host: But the key is on what grounds do the leaders inside China claim their legitimacy?

Lampton: I think right now we're in a transitional stage and the basis for their legitimacy now is economic performance. That's a problem for political leadership because you're not always going to have terrific economic performance. Also at some point, you're going to have a middle class that is the result of this sustained positive economic performance. And they're going to demand more rights of production, of property, contracts, predictable government, taxation, and so on. So, I don't think it's quite accurate to say that China's government isn't legitimate, but that the basis of legitimacy both historic accomplishment

-- unifying China, getting rid of the foreigners and then economic performance. As time is moving forward, that's not going to be enough. And that's where I think the crisis goes on.

Waldron: Even though those aren't really achievements. I mean the unification, such as it was, was at the point of a gun. And the promise of elections, which was one of the reasons the Communists received so much support, was never followed through on. The foreigners are now back in force and they are a more privileged class compared to ordinary Chinese than ever before. On the economy, the reason the economy is doing well is that the party is getting out of the way. The party is the problem in the economy. If there were no party at all and you had a fully free economy, China would be doing much better than it is now. The reason, for instance, bank loans, which are the savings of Chinese people, are squandered on state-owned enterprises and wasted -- hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars -- instead of going into productive investments, is because the party insists on doing that. The party, in other words, is consuming the seed corn. It's just a mistake for us outside not to recognize that there really is a vacuum. That is what the leadership is worried about. They know they have no legitimacy, but they don't obviously say it. We in the West, we're free to say it. I think that we ought to admit it. Then that defines the problems ahead.

Host: Dimon Liu?

Liu: If you say the economy is doing wonderful, then we should ask the question: who is doing wonderfully under the present economy? The real fact is the economic polarization has been extreme. The poor people are getting much, much poorer, and the rich are getting incredibly rich. How can you not get rich if your profits are guaranteed and when vast numbers of people are becoming exploited? In such a situation, the only way you can get legitimacy is through military power and, secondly, through external support. The West's policy toward China, at the moment, is supporting the mafioso government against the Chinese people.

Host: In what way?

Liu: They are propping them up. They want profit and stability so much that they are overlooking the suffering of the Chinese people. They cannot even hear, let alone can they see, the suffering of the Chinese people. They are crying out in the dark. In 1989, the Chinese people were overwhelmingly pro-West. They put their lives down on the line to protect Westerners in Tiananmen Square. Today, very seldom can you find a Chinese person who upholds the West in China. I cannot see why we replay a hundred years ago when the West, under the British leadership, was supporting and propping up the Manchu empire to suppress the Chinese people. That brought on a hundred years of anti-Western tradition. And we are not learning from the lesson of history. We are repeating the failed policy of the West of a hundred years ago.

Host: Do you agree with that, Arthur Waldron?

Waldron: I think Dimon is making a very important point, which is there is a lot of similarity between the privileged role of Westerners, and I would add the privileged role of foreign investment. Any of the four of us at this table could go into China and start a business of our own and be very, very successful, with luck. We wouldn't have problems with government. An ordinary Chinese cannot do that. In other words, foreign money is being brought in and foreign business is being brought in, in order precisely to take the place. It forecloses the possibility of the Chinese doing it. But having said that, I think the big problem is, if China is ever to be what she should be, and China is a great civilization which has had problems in the modern period, the Chinese people have to be in power. The Chinese people are enormously talented. They're resourceful. They flourish everywhere in the world, except in China itself. When I think of what we have just seen, for instance, with Li Shaomin, who to my mind is the kind of person who gives China a good name, a really, able, serious, patriotic man of Chinese background being arrested. At the same time, all sorts of criminals basically are in high office. I have to say that China is not making good use of its human talent. And the reason is that the present government wants to stay in power and it prefers mediocrity to excellence. And it fears its own people.

Host: What about Dimon Liu's larger point that the United States is somehow complicit in the suppression of the Chinese people through its relations with the government, when, in fact, it's hard to find another government in the world that is more vocal about human rights abuses in China? As Arthur Waldron mentioned earlier, Secretary Powell, during his recent trip to China, made a statement about human rights in that respect. What do you think about that, David Lampton?

Lampton: I think reality is complicated. And I think the United States doesn't have a lot to apologize for here. First of all the involvement

-- there's an interesting book out called Dragon in a Three-Piece Suit, interviews with about eighty-six different factories in China. The long and the short of it is that human rights conditions in Chinese factories were in direct relationship to the amount of foreign involvement there, point one. Point two, the foreign involvement in China is entirely different than the pre-1949 period. It's not treaty port, it's not extra-territoriality.

Waldron: David, it's simply that they use different words; the reality is the same. . . .

Lampton: But it strikes me there is a central problem, there's a practical problem beyond all of this, and that is: how do you build institutions to represent people's views? How do you build a legal system? How do you build an impartial judiciary? There's an institution-building problem here. And if I would fault the Chinese leadership, and I would for many of the reasons that have been articulated, but the biggest problem is they are not building the kinds of institutions that are going to represent the social forces that the reform is creating.

Waldron: That is the defining problem and they're wasting time.

Host: In the sense that they're suppressing any competing source of legitimacy or authority in the society, whether it's a Christian church, a Falun Gong organization, or a civic group, or something like the Democratic Party. Is that what you mean?

Lampton: Yes, and they are not going to be able to keep the lid down forever, and there are going to be no channels for the constructive expression of all of these views.

Host: We have just a few short minutes left here, and I want each of you to please give your opinion of what the stakes are for the United States in terms of the future of Communism in China, and how it will affect our relations.

Waldron: It's in our interest that there be a peaceful transition away from Communism. We can't guarantee that, so, therefore, the most important task of our foreign policy is to see to it that we have alliance relationships and a stable set of friends so that, even if there is serious trouble in China, which I hope will not be the case, that will not destabilize Asia.

Host: Dimon Liu?

Liu: I believe that the U-S does have a human rights policy, but this policy simply cannot just be allowed. It has to be effective. If we can have an effective policy, but we must be sincere and be realistic about what we can do and what we must do. The underlying reason is that trade does not build democracy. It is democrats who build democracy. We must support democrats.

Host: David Lampton?

Lampton: I think the U-S has a difficult problem, and there's more than one thing to worry about. One thing to worry about is a government that becomes stronger and stronger, but is not behaving according to global norms. And we have to devote a lot of effort to getting China involved and compliant with those norms. That's a big problem. There's another big problem, and that is a China that is sufficiently weak that it can't even govern, democratically or otherwise, its people. And if they don't solve this problem that we were just discussing, we could end up with a China that's too weak to govern itself. And that would be a catastrophe, in my view, for the Chinese people and for the United States. So, the issue is how to move China as rapidly as we can in the direction of constructive domestic governance.

Host: I'm afraid that's all the time we have this week. I would like to thank our guests - Arthur Waldron from the University of Pennsylvania; David Lampton from Johns Hopkins University; and independent human rights activist Dimon Liu -- for joining me to discuss the future of China. This is Robert Reilly for On the Line.