The CPC is not a “party” 中国人的“天下”是什么，西方人不懂

I refer to a youtube video by the director of China Institute, Fudan University, Zhang Weiwei: The CPC is not a “party” 中国人的“天下”是什么，西方人不懂

Thousands of years of Chinese imperial rule does not justify China’s one party rule today.  Communities all around the world were ruled for centuries by kings and queens.  But that didn’t prevent most from converting to democratic rule today.

Whether ancient China had been more peaceful and prosperous than its contemporaries in Europe depends on the era.  A large swathe of Europe used to be under the Roman Empire for 400 years.  It is difficult to say with certainty whether the contemporary Han dynasty was more prosperous than the Roman Empire or vice versa.

The word “party” is not a misnomer for the CPC.  Just because the CPC is unlike the Republican or the Democratic Party doesn’t mean it is therefore not a party.

Branding the Republican and Democratic parties as representing special interest groups doesn’t place the CPC on a higher pedestal.  The CPC too represents a special interest group – that of itself.  Despite realising the catastrophic consequences of the Cultural Revolution, the CPC didn’t put an immediate stop to it because it didn’t want to openly admit its mistake, causing millions more losses in lives.  This clearly demonstrates that the CPC prioritizes itself over the people it governs.  It is therefore not entirely correct to say that the CPC represents the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people.  The CPC represents, first and foremost, itself.  American initiatives such as the New Deal, the Manhattan project, the Apollo program or the bank rescue of 2007 all served pan-American interests, not partisan interests.

The amalgamation of hundreds of states into one China occurred in 221 BC, more than 2,000 years ago.  It would be quite ridiculous to still use it as an excuse to justify China’s one party state today. China’s long civilisation serves as a ballast that stabilises the nation.  China’s large size is also a source of great strength, not liability, that provides it with tremendous resources to arm and police the state.  These are two advantages, not disadvantages that should make China more governable, not less governable under the democratic model.  Any adversarial competition under the democratic model is child’s play compared to the bloodshed and turmoil that accompanies the overthrow of the one party state.

It is not fair to attribute the chaos of the warlord era to the American model.  The roots of the warlord era lies with the decay towards the end of the Manchu dynasty when unrests such as the Taiping Rebellion forced the Manchus to allow provincial governors to raise their own armies to fight against Taiping rebels.  These armies eventually became the warlords of the warlord era.  The CPC itself was a participant in the warlord period.  It too wasn’t strong enough to control the other warlords and maintain peace so why should it have the right to criticise other powers for failing to do so?  The American model is no guarantee for peace and prosperity.  No model is.  The Cultural Revolution is the eternal proof that the CPC model can cause far greater harm and disaster than the American model.

The Chinese saying that water can carry the boat but can also capsize the boat meant little to many past Chinese Emperors who ruled with tyranny and yet lived to a ripe old age.  It is precisely to avoid the widespread suffering and bloodshed that comes with the people’s uprising and rebellion that democracy arose as a way to bloodlessly transfer power away from those who have lost the verdict of its people. What better way to demonstrate the people’s faith in the party than one man one vote?

The ancient Chinese keju system did not guarantee that China would be ruled well as one dynasty would befall another.  Problem was that the eunuchs, through personal connections, often wielded much greater power than the officials that came through the keju system.  The same problem exists today in China as guan xi continues to be very important and many are in positions of privilege because of guan xi.  This connection with the past is a dangerous and backward one that bears little resemblance to Western democracy.  This connection also doesn’t explain China’s rise and success today.  Taiwan is the best example of how mainland China, without CPC, would have been able to rise and succeed just as quickly, if not more so.  Taiwan shows why a democratic China would have been restored to world class status just the same.

马丁雅克：西方会采用武力遏制中国崛起吗？

I refer to the Chinese talkshow 中国大思政·11·马丁雅克·张维为:

马丁雅克：西方会采用武力遏制中国崛起吗？

It’s not necessarily correct to say that China can never be like the West. Taiwan is living proof that the Chinese can be like the West. If kuomintang won China’s civil war in 1949 instead of CCP, China would definitely be much more democratic today.

The kuomintang elites who ruled Taiwan were also shaped by thousands of years of Chinese civilisation. But that didn’t prevent Taiwan from fully adopting Western democratic institutions.

The West’s antagonism towards the CCP today isn’t the same as the West’s antagonism towards the Soviet Communist Party in the past. In the past, the threat of communism was real. Today, communism as an ideal is all but dead, surviving only in name but not in substance in the CCP. Capitalism runs in the blood of the Chinese. For about 40 years already, the CCP has never ceased to demonstrate with deeds, not words, that it will never again run its society and economy under communist principles. The only facets of communism still remaining are in politics and military.

The West’s, or more specifically, the US’s antagonism towards China today is essentially its antagonism towards No. 2 powers that threaten its own global dominance.

The West’s misgivings about the one party system isn’t the notion that lack of choice leads to decay and ossification. That can well be true but more importantly, no party can guarantee that it will forever succeed. Any such guarantee would surely be deceit. Because no party can be sure to succeed forever, a mechanism is needed to smoothly transition power to another party that can do better. That mechanism is democracy.

The idea that competing political models can be judged on the basis of their ability to deliver economic success is also false. In its essence, democracy isn’t about achieving more success, it’s about power to the people. It’s about placing the people at the apex of the political structure. The litmus test of democracy is whether or not the people can fire any political party at will. Because the Chinese people can never fire the CCP, the CCP fails the democratic test. The fact that the Chinese economy is now towering head and shoulders above all other nations today is no proof that it is the CCP that has delivered this economic miracle.

If we were to convert all the poorest countries in this world to communist political rule today, will they all suddenly become rich? Certainly not. What the CCP has proven is that the specific brand of politics that governs a nation isn’t the most critical element determining the economic achievement of a nation or lack thereof. There is no reason why a China ruled by democratic Taiwan since 1949 would be any less prosperous today.

Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore have shown that the political system, regardless of whether it is fully democratic, colonial or one-party, matters not to economic success.