In totality, while China has not experienced much democracy, they have had lots of democratic rumblings.
While author John
Day realizes that Chiang Kai-shek was an autocratic dictator, in
1943, who headed a one party totalitarian China, much like China
today, he simultaneously was optimistic about the democratic sunshine
that would inevitably stream through China's future clouds. Chiang
Kai-shek pledged to the people of China that he will bring about “the
realization of constitutional government as soon as possible” since
that was the inevitable goal of his “revolutionary efforts”.1
While not a democracy in 1943, John Day provides amble evidence of
democracy's rumblings in Chinese history and culture. According to
Day, “the essential democratic elements are already existing in
China: the experience of local self-rule, the innate faith in the
individual, the tradition of ultimate popular sovereignty, the Three
Principles of the People, the embryonic attempt at representative
government, the co-operative movements, the emphasis on education,
and the genuine desire for international peace and harmony.”2
Because of these reasons, Day says, “China is in many respects far
ahead of the West, which is, by comparison, still laying the
foundations for its democratic structure.”3
Chiang Kai-shek says of Democracy: “To my mind, our destiny is with
the democracies, because our people are inherently democratic in
nature and spirit. If we survive, we have the opportunity to become a
great organized democracy. That is, of course, if democracy itself
survives in the world.”4
Feudalism
had been established during China's Han Dynasty (206BCE-220AD), but
an Emperor issued a decree declaring that all lands be evenly
distributed to the sons of the families. This decree decentralized
the autocratic homestead, and made conditions more egalitarian for
all men, of families who owned land. “There was no guillotine, no
purging of the nobility; there was no confiscation of private lands
or drastic inheritance taxes—none of the weapons the impatient West
has used.”5
From
8 A.D.-23 A.D., Emperor Wang Mang, “the first New Dealer”,
instituted many radical reforms. Emperor Wang Mang liberated the
slaves (like Lincoln), and nationalized: the land (like Lincoln),
“the natural resources, currency, credit, wine, and salt (which has
always been the most profitable single source of revenue in China)”.6
Many
Chinese Dynasties were taken down by peasant rebellions, sometimes
seemingly spontaneous, just as the Arab Spring. A peasant rebellion
is the ultimate pinnacle for democracy, since that's one time when
the Demos have the power, and gather together for a common single
unified goal: throw the bums out, and dissolve the government.
Mencius' “Mandate of Heaven” was given to those rulers who could
maintain order. If the Emperor could maintain order then that was
God's will. Conversely, if the Emperor and the ruling minority elite
was overthrown by a peasant rebellion, that was God's will too. The
Sui Dynasty (589-619) was overthrown by a peasant rebellion, led by
Huang Chao. The Tang Dynasty was established by taking control of the
chaos7.
The Mongols were driven out of power during the Yuan Dynasty
(1271-1368) by a peasant rebellion, led by Zhu Yuanzhang, who had
allied with the Chinese gentry, and would eventually become Emperor
of the new Ming Dynasty.
In
the late Qing Dynasty, 1895, Liang Qichao protested for democratic
reforms in Beijing. He ran away to Japan, and, from his Confucian
vantage point, wrote popular works about democracy. In 1908, in
Tianjin, a Chinese city, the County Council was chosen through
elections. The imperial Qing Dynasty ended in 1911, when the Manchu
were deposed. China had elections for their Bicameral National
Assembly (Senate and House of Representatives, just like America) in
December 1912 to January 1913. The election was indirect democracy,
since the voters voted on electors, who then turned around and voted
on their leaders, which is strikingly similar to America's current
indirect democratic system of today. Another similarity to America,
at least Revolutionary America, is that those who were allowed to
vote in the 1912 elections were only the adult males over 21, who
owned property. Within two years, China's democratic experiment would
break down, and the norm of autocratic military rule returned for
decades.8
While
it's known that Mao Zedong was a bloody genocidal dictator, he is
still beloved in China, and Mao Zedong was a known Marxist. The third
stage of Marxism is Capitalism, and the next, and last, stage of
Marxism is the Proletarian Revolution. The Proletarian Revolution is
when the working class peasants rises up, and destroys Capitalism,
and then institutes a perfect Communist utopia where everybody works
together, and nobody is in want. Each according to his ability, each
according to his needs. Since Marx believed that Socialism and
Democracy worked hand-in-hand with each other, some Chinese may
decide to usher in the final stage of Marxism, and bring in true blue
Communism, and not the aberration they have now.
In
the 1970s, there was a “Democracy Wall”, where anybody could
write anything, until somebody wrote something offensive, and it was
quickly tore down.9
In the 1980s, Hong
Kong got its first elections.10
The Tiananmen Square protests happened in 1989, which are known to
the Chinese (those who know about it) as the June Fourth Incident.
Macau got their elections in the 1990s. In
March 1996, Taiwan had national elections for national
representatives, and direct election for their Presidential
election.11
“Unlike the prolonged bloody struggles between the people and the
autocrats of imperial Russia, France, England, and other countries,
Taiwan's democratization had occurred rapidly and peacefully.”12
In 2000, Taiwan saw the first peaceful transfer of power to an
opposition leader, a major success for democracy.
While
there have been rumblings of democracy amongst the Chinese, China is
far from being a democracy. According to a 2012 Freedom House write
up, “China is not an electoral democracy.” It's #141 of 167
countries in the Economist's
2011 Democracy Index. A 9-person Politburo council has the
iron-fisted power of China proper, which is controlled by the
Communist Party. China's Communist Party is similar to Mexico's PRI
Party, which ruled as a single party authoritarian dictatorship,
where some ceremonial elections were held, but they were fixed by the
inner party's internal mechanisms, and have been able to stay in
power for decades. The Communist Party has ruled China as a one party
totalitarian state for decades. As head of a nation-state, Hu gets to
enjoy a monopoly on violence, and uses that absolute power to
suppress activists, journalists, and opposition parties, such as the
Chinese Democracy Party, and to imprison them, including a 2010 Nobel
Peace Prize winner, and online journalists who report about officials
taking illegal bribes. The Internet and cell phones are censored with
great success. Hu Jintao, the current autocratic Chinese Dictator,
has announced that China does not need an opposition party, since one
party totalitarian rule suits ole Hu Jintao just fine.13
A
few years ago, the article “Democracy is a Good Thing” by Yu
Keping came out, and has since appeared in most China's major
newspapers, and has been widely circulated.14
Yu Keping said that the challenge for Chinese scholars is to make
democracy “safe for China both conceptually and procedurally.”15
The
Democratic Peace Theory has been Washington's claim for decades. The
Democratic Peace Theory declares that democracies don't war with each
other. This is one reason why the US wants China to become
democratic, but also because China has been massively building up
their economy and their military into a major super power that rivals
the US with lightning speed, and the US feels threatened by that. Add
the fact that China offers a different ideology and worldview that
counters the Washington Consensus, and offers a major alternative:
the Beijing Consensus.
The
origins of European democracy coming from Athens is a recent
invention. “Enlightenment thinkers tended to see ancient Athens as
a negative example, a place supposedly made unstable, chaotic, and
vulnerable by the entrance of the mob into politics.”16
Instead, it was the fascist military might of the Spartans that they
revered, and sought to live up to, not democratic Athens. There were
also elements of racism towards Asians. Emma Goldman thought of Lenin
as a “shrewd Asiatic” who brought forth “Asiatic barbarism”.17
Samuel Huntington, a popular author about international relations,
says that democracy outcome of a uniquely Western European cultural
process.18
Samuel Huntington is exhibited a self-serving bias by having
patriotic feelings towards his own country and Western civilization.
Democracy being a virtue in Western culture is a myth. “The idea of
a culturally unique and democratic West, however, is a dangerous,
antidemocratic construct.”19
Democracies
aren't always guaranteed to succeed. The German Weimer Republic, the
February Russian Revolution, the French Revolution, and many
democratic breakthroughs in Latin America all eventually failed. In
China, the 1911 Republican breakthrough to democracy was lost in less
than two years. In 1920, Japan had a brief democratic opening that
was smashed by fascism's boot. Democratic regimes in Africa that
overthrew their European colonial masters didn't last long.20
Crane Briton's Anatomy of Revolution suggests that the only
way a revolution can consolidate it's democracy is with radical
terror.21
The Civil War was how America consolidated her democracy. In 1989,
Gorbachev in Soviet Union sought democratic reforms, and once that
genie was out of the bottle, there was no putting it back in. By late
1990, the Soviet Empire was no more. So Democracy could lead to the
dissolution of the State, and that doesn't serve the interests of the
imperial totalitarian government.
The
United States Constitution started out by limiting Universal Freedom
by restricting the right to vote from all Black folks, all Native
American Indians, all women, anybody under 21, and all non-land
owning white men. Hodgenville
Kentucky born Abraham Lincoln says about the Protestant Know-Nothing
Party:
As
a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.”
We now practically read it “all men are created equals, except
negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all
men are created equally except negroes, and foreigners, and
Catholics.” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to
some country where they made no pretense of loving liberty—to
Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken... without the
base alloy of hypocrisy.22
The
Proposal
American
scholars have not agreed upon a definition of democracy, and that's
problematic since the US invades countries and initiates wars of
imperial aggression in the name of freedom and democracy. America has
never had a pure democracy, and Kentucky specifically only has 28% of
her citizen's voting (November 2011). Since only a little more than
half of them are deciding on their Governor and representatives,
that's about 15% of the folks in Kentucky who are deciding who the
authoritarian ruling elite should be. This means that the
overwhelming majority of Kentuckians reject participating in their
democratic government, and this presents a democratic legitimacy
crisis. The governing ruling class of the state are not
democratically legitimate.
On
an episode of The Colbert Report awhile back, Stephen Colbert
showed a picture of the Tienanmen Square incident, and none of the
Chinese youth being interviewed could identify that event. The
Tienanmen Square, especially the Tank Man, looms large in Western
literature and imagination. The Economist 2011 Democracy Index
ranks China as #141 in a list of 167 countries around the world. The
US is ranked 19th. The 2011 Democracy Index points out
that there has been a spread a democracy in Asia for the last couple
of decades, but only 7 of the 20 Asian countries that had elections
were considered “free and fair”. An Asian Barometer poll shows
that most Asians do not believe that democratic reforms helped their
lives directly, and while most of them support democratic ideals,
their commitment to limiting a leader's power is lower than in most
of the rest of the world.23
Since
Kentucky and China both have issues with democracy, my research will
be focused on them. I will use the methodology that is used for the
Democracy Index—the 60 question questionnaire—for Kentucky, and a
comparable region in China. The 60 question questionnaire gathers
data about the perceptions people have about their government and
it's effectiveness. The Democracy Index quantifies democracy in four
main areas: political participation, functioning of government,
electoral process, and civil liberties. To begin my research, I'll
need to demonstrate that this study would be useful, and so I'd have
to find two regions between the States that have enough similarities
to make it a worthwhile comparison. There is also immense value in
having a Democracy Index for all 50 States in the US, and for
different districts in China, for the same reasons an international
Democracy Index is useful. I would want to choose my two initial
regions with care, and may choose to compare City-States instead.
Louisville
compared to Hong Kong, which was given a “Partly Free” rating by
Freedom House, compared to China's “Not Free” rating, might offer
a better analytical framework for comparison, though Hong Kong's
immense size puts Louisville to shame. Macao looks to be a possible
prospect to compare to Louisville, because of it's autonomy, and
population. Taiwan, hailed as The First Chinese Democracy
in March 1996, also showed China's mainland by example how
democracy's are supposed to work, with televised Presidential
debates in 2011. The Presidential Debates in Taiwan was widely viewed
and discussed in mainland China, and has generated a lot of
enthusiasm for China's prospects for becoming democratic. It was
suggested by a blogger that if Hu Jintao and Ma Ying-jeou (Taiwan's
President) were to debate, that Hu would be “defeated and
speechless”.24
The
results of this research project will show that America's weakest
democracies compare to, and is perhaps worse, than China's best
democracies. This finding would challenge many leading authors
regarding the superiority of Western culture's innate natural
inclination to progress towards a liberal democracy versus the
culture in Asia. These inevitable findings would vindicate the late
Edward Said, and set Samuel Huntington straight.
Bibliography
2012
Freedom House. Assessed April 25, 2012.
http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2012/china-0.
Chao,
Linda and Ramon H. Myers. 1998. The First Chinese Democracy:
Political Life in the Republic of China on Taiwan.
(Baltimore, Maryland: John Hopkins University Press).
Brown,
Miranda and Conrad Schirokauer. 2006. A Brief History of
Chinese Civilization, 2nd Edition.
(Belmont, CA; Thompson).
Day,
John. 1943. Is China A Democracy?.
(New York: John Day Company).
Economist
Report. 2011. “Democracy Under Stress: Economist
2011 Democracy Index”. Assessed April 25, 2012.
http://www.sida.se/Global/About%20Sida/S%C3%A5%20arbetar%20vi/EIU_Democracy_Index_Dec2011.pdf.
Fang,
Sophia and Quincy Yu. 2012. “Mainland Chinese See Taiwan Election
as Lesson in Democracy”. Assessed April 25, 2012.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china-news/mainland-chinese-see-taiwan-election-as-lesson-in-democracy-173135.html.
Friedman,
Edward. 1995. National Identity and Democratic Prospects in
Socialist China. (Armonk, New
York: ME Sharp).
Keping,
Yu. 2009. Democracy Is A Good Thing.
(Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press).
Said,
Edward. 1979. Orientalism.
(New York: Vintage).
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1943, 11
2Day,
1943, 12
3Day,
1943, 11
4Day,
1943, 132
5Day,
1943, 17
6Day,
1943, 18
7Brown
and Schikauer, 2006, 109
8Brown
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9Brown
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10Brown
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11Brown
and Schirokauer, 2006, 390
12Chao
and Myers, 1998, 6
13Brown
and Schirokauer, 2006, 394
14Kepling,
2009, xviii
15Kepling,
2009, xix
16Freidman,
1995, 239
17Freidman,
1995, 236
18Freidman,
1995, 237
19Freidman,
1995, 235
20Freidman,
1995, 249
21Freidman,
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22Freidman,
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23Economist
Report, 2011
24
Fang and Yu, 2012
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