A debate on China

The motion ‘This house fears the rise of China’ was under debate recently at the Oxford Union. The chamber was jam-packed, and having been active at the Union for a year, I knew this debate was going to be one of the best of the term. The speakers’ line-up included the vice-president of the European Union, the chief foreign commentator for The Times, and a professor from Oxford.

From my vantage point, right behind where the speakers were sitting, I could see Benazir Bhutto’s portrait, which hangs in full majestic might. The story goes that when Musharraf spoke at the Union a few years back, as president, his team removed Benazir’s portrait before the speech. This being the Union, Musharraf was asked during the question and answer session why the portrait was missing and he pleaded ignorance.

The first speaker for the proposition was Shengwu Li, who was the winner at the World Universities Championship in 2009. He started building the case by arguing that China’s growth had been so massive that even policy planners in Beijing were shocked and therefore clueless as to how to manage and build upon it.

This side used the well-beaten road of human rights abuses, with Tibet and China’s treatment of the Uighurs (in Xingiang province bordering Pakistan) thrown in for good measure. The EU vice-president, Edward McMillan-Scott, was particularly scathing, and his five-minute spiel was basically a tirade of the list of detainees rotting in China’s dark prisons. He also quoted the case of Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize winner for 2010.

The last speaker to bash China was Bronwen Maddox, journalist extraordinaire. She shared her anecdotal experiences and one of them was very illuminating: on one of her trips with Gordon Brown, she went to a Chinese municipality with the intention to encourage the local people to learn English. However, she said, she was surprised to find that most people in the audience knew English and knew it quite well.

To put things back into perspective, Rana Mitter, professor of the history and politics of China at Oxford University, gave some facts. He said a lot still needed to be accomplished but the resounding success and unmatched development the Chinese have accomplished is an achievement in itself. He argued that human rights and democracy should not been be seen as a black-and-white issue and that China is not the totalitarian state that the West makes it out to be. The Communist Party is undergoing tremendous change and the party is willing and able to fight corruption, he said.

The fact of the matter is that Mighty China is already here and is already flexing its muscle — this is evident by the currency wars going on with America. Often labelled as the industrial factory for the Western consumer, China has also taken the lead with innovation and design: the world’s fastest train running from Wuhan down to the coast is only one of the many examples pouring out of China that continue to amaze everyday.

I did not have any qualms when it came to voting — the audience decides the fate of the debate after the Union floor closes. Hardly left with any friends on the international stage, Pakistan is in dire need of not just friends, but friends with power. And the word synonymous with power in everyone’s mind at the Oxford Union that day was China.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 23^rd, 2010.