US-China: competing governance models

This is a continuation of my previous article on US-China rivalry, but I can’t help and hold myself back and want to share a domestic news item first with the readers, simply because it reflects how two worlds — the American and the Chinese — showcase two entirely different governance models. The news item is that “JUI-F leader dares the Chief Justice and the Chief Minister to implement the mosque demolition order in Karachi”. I don’t know what will become of this leader, and whether the Chief Justice of Supreme Court will make an example out of him. What I do know is that this example clearly shows what the Chinese don’t want in their country and it is from here that I wish to make a start.

The concentration of power lies at the heart of the discussion on how the American model of governance is different from the Chinese model. China divides society into two classes — the ruling class and the non-ruling class. Unlike the US, which favours the diffusion and sharing of power, China wants power to be concentrated in the ruling class and not the non-ruling. It abhors democracy because in that system both classes strive to get power and that gradually eats the sovereignty and splits it into two halves. These dualities of power that the democracies today endure can easily transit into anarchy or the worst-case scenario of civil war. There would be no demand for dictatorship or opportunities created for a dictator to take over if there is no such quest for power by the ruling and the non-ruling class. China considers this existence of duality of power as an evil that creates anarchy, civil wars and revolutions. The example I quoted at the start of a religious leader challenging the executive and judiciary clearly explains how the non-ruling class can continue to blackmail the kleptocracies of this world.

Being Thomas Hobbes Levithan (sea monster) or being Machiavelli’s “better be widely feared than to be greatly loved” — a state’s job is of course to protect the freedoms and the rights of the people. But more than that the state must protect the people’s right to life and how people can live their lives uninterrupted by the non-ruling class that keeps challenging and blackmailing the state because of the power it accumulated at the cost of a weak state. And if a state has its ideology and its national narrative based on its national interests should it allow free propagation, circulation and dissemination of anti-state ideas and narratives? With a 1.3 billion population and 8 million students graduating every year from universities and rolling out into the society seeking jobs, the state cannot afford ill-founded propaganda, publicity and disinformation to mislead and misguide young minds. China wants to avoid this.

Today the Western mind is infused with the concept of individuals being more important than the state and hence the individual rights and human rights. However, that is a concept of an end of human evolution and the formulation of the final form of government which is more continental — European and Western. In our part of the world where China is rising as a great power, a state still needs to be more important and powerful than the individual as all individual liberty will stem from a state that can ensure good governance based on the rule of law. Without order, there is no democracy and without rule of law no society but a mash of people questing for individual and group liberties.

Countries like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in South Asia and other countries in Southeast Asia and Africa are struggling to enhance and boost their social mobility in a democratic system that is promoting social conflicts more than social harmony. China is watching these countries going through and experiencing more destructive than the constructive ends of the democracy — populism, protectionism, and ethnic nationalism. Although China is not a capitalist country, it is rebranding capitalism under the state’s authority to deliver what capitalism delivers best — rising living standards for the people and continuous state development and growth. For this, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) needs to maintain control throughout social development as it cannot afford a decline in its social mobility. Having loosened the communist chains since 1978, China leads the world in how it has built new technologies, new cities, new wealth, new transport and new ways of life. The World Bank estimates that 800 million people were lifted out of poverty by this convulsion. Even if it was a one-party system of totalitarian control, the Chinese political system resulted in creating social harmony and social well-being in the society. People in China view this governance model as decisive and responsive, which wastes no time in cutting through the obstacles in pursuit of China’s vision of the future.

All political structures have their characters. The Western political culture and its democratic system that we copy here are not backed by what backs it in the West. In the West, it is a state authority, the dispensation of justice, and rule of law. Here the copied Western political system is characterised by corruption, nepotism, selfish materialism, political division and institutionalism which promotes social exploitation. And to judge the character of any political system one needs to figure out two things: one, how exploitative the system is; and two, the relationship of the ruling class with the oppressed class.

If 20 years earlier, only 4% of Chinese were part of the middle class and now that number has grown to over 50% (Pew income-based classification), can this be called exploitation? Only a considerate and caring ruling class will build over 150 million new houses to settle down the marginalised people that have moved to the middle class.

The success of the Chinese governance model is based on CCP’s belief in the concept of democratic centralism under the Chinese characteristics of Datong (great unity, great togetherness) and Tianxia (all under heaven). Democratic centralism allows debate and discussion of policy amongst the party members but once a decision is taken it requires unquestioning support for its implementation. All this political system has done so far is maximise the interests of its people and this is a lesson for the copiers and followers of the Western democratic system.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 2^nd, 2022.

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