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发帖数: 13789 | 1 How Will China Democratize?
The so-called third wave of democracy (a expression coined by the political
scientist Samuel P. Huntington), which began in 1974 with the
democratization of Portugal, continued through the breakup of the Soviet
Union and the dissolution of communism in East Europe beginning in the late
1980s, and continues through to today, has given us, Gilley says, ample
information on how democracy can emerge and ample data on which to base
predictions of democratic transitions.
The “transition sequence,” as Gilley termed it, will likely proceed
through three stages.
(1) Crisis: “Crisis means a system-wide crisis of governance that differs
from the normal crisis of authoritarian rule in two respects: It is broad or
national, and it is blamed by society on the regime itself -- SARS was a
perfect example of this last year.” This will be either an economic or
political crisis, and perhaps one that at first is remote, either in the
sense that it germinates far from the centers of power or in the sense that
it first appears relatively unimportant. In any event, the crisis soon
spreads and begins to occupy center stage.
Gilley thinks it is unlikely that China will face a slowdown in economic
growth in the next decade or so. Nonetheless, an economic crisis cannot be
ruled out. China is wrestling with many ugly fiscal problems, any one of
which could get out of control. Gilley mentioned one such problem: the
budget deficit now stands at 6 or 7 percent of GDP. The state’s main answer
so far has been to print more money. If this leads to unchecked inflation,
one can easily imagine the results.
As for political crises, there is virtually no end of potential candidates.
Gilley specifically mentioned the Taiwan issue as one that could erupt into
crisis, but he emphasized that it is impossible to predict the origin of the
crisis that will catalyze the democratization of China.
(2) Mobilization: At some point society responds to the crisis by organizing
itself. At this point the crisis becomes a political issue, and various
reform-minded elites and social forces mobilize to act.
(3) Elite Defection and the Democratic Breakthrough: At a later point,
significant members of the elite announce that, to deal with the crisis,
they are going to reform the political system and establish an interim, or
caretaker, government. The caretaker government then announces that
elections will be held. Once elections are held, the process is complete,
and society has democratized.
Elite defection is clearly at the center of Gilley’s analysis. “The
formation of a breakthrough elite is the key event in a successful
democratic transition -- there is a game here where no one will agree to a
new form of authoritarianism so the only option is a democratic move (often
intended to be limited at first) in which no one wants to the last to agree
too.” Gilley mentioned a few current members of the elite who, although
they are top leaders in what is now an authoritarian regime, could
conceivably lead a transition to democracy: Zeng Qinghong (b. 1939; China’s
vice president and a member of the all-important Standing Committee of the
Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party), whom Gilley identified as “the
key figure,” as well as Wen Jiabao (b. 1942; China’s premier and also a
member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo) and Wu Guanzheng (b. 1938
; a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo), both of whom Gilley
described as “potential allies since they are pragmatic ‘scientific and
democratic’ policy makers.” Gilley does not see the military as an
obstacle to a democratic transition since it has been depoliticized in
recent years, it has been deprived of the business empire it had built up,
and it has a growing sense of professionalism. In fact, Gilley mentioned
several officers are remarkably outspoken in expressing their liberalism.
Consolidation of Democracy
Will democracy in China fail? Of the forty-one democracies that emerged
during the “third wave of democracy,” twenty-nine have been consolidated,
which is to say, they have survived. The survivors include even “frozen”
countries like Romania, Albania, and Bulgaria. Nevertheless, in looking at
China, Gilley’s verdict is that it has “mixed prospects” for surviving as
a democracy. His book draws up a scorecard for China:
PLUS: small but significant middle class; market economy; de facto
decentralized government; depoliticized military; emerging rule of law;
democratic legacy (in 1913 China had its first -- and only -- national
election); functioning state apparatus
MINUS: ethnic divisions (Tibet, Muslims, etc.); corruption; income
inequality; fiscal weakness; no organized opposition; anti-democratic
culture
UNKNOWN: What will be the “choices made by the political elites: Do they ‘
believe’ in the ideal of democracy and its possibility? That is a real
unknown.”
The character of a democratic China will largely depend on the decisions
made by the transformed, newly democratic elite. And that character may be
very different from China today. For instance, if China adopts proportional
representation in its parliament, there will be a massive shift of political
power away from the relatively rich and developed seaboard toward more
populous central China. At the same time, it is not unlikely that in free
elections the reconfigured Communist Party (probably under a new name) may
win. After all, as Gilley pointed out, it has vast organizational resources.
Not entirely within the control of the elite is the issue of ethnic
nationalism in Xinjiang, which has a large and restive Muslim population,
and Tibet, as well as the aspirations of many Taiwanese for formal
independence. Gilley argued that the “voting and violence” thesis holds
that risks are greatest during the transition to democracy. He believes that
a secession clause should be written into democratic China’s constitution,
banning regions like Tibet and Xinjiang from withdrawing from China for,
say, ten or twenty years. As for Taiwan, he warned that “Taiwan needs to be
careful not to provoke a transitioning China,” but that “independence
need not be messy since Taiwan is already separate (unlike Tibet and
Xinjiang).”
A Democratic China: What Does It Mean for the World?
“China’s democratization will fundamentally change global politics at
every level.” A democratic China will be much more powerful in terms of “
soft power.” In other words, it will have a legitimate claim to world
influence. It will, after all, be the world’s largest democracy,
representing 1.3 million people, a good portion of the world’s population.
In Gilley’s view, a democratic China may well raise, and make legitimate,
questions involving such things as the allocation of the world’s resources.
Today there are strong feelings in the world’s poorer and developing
countries that resources are not fairly distributed, that globalization is
making rich countries still richer and the poor still (relatively speaking)
poorer. A free and democratic China will in a position to make questions
like this less easy for the rich, developed countries to avoid. |
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