Sigma’s Simulacrum of Reality

About a week ago was the 18th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. I just felt like talking a little bit about it now.

First, here’s a rockin’ video of it to fire up the pro-democracy camp before we start

All fired up now? Haha, let’s get on with it then!

I’ve written about this before, and what I found disturbing was many of the commentors who took the side of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in this act. They point out that “Look and how successful China is right now. If it wasn’t for the crushing of the student uprising in 1989, this Modern China would not have eventuated”.

To me, firstly this brutal crushing of that uprising clearly demonstrates how insecure the CCP towards its legitimacy to govern. Remember that its only mandate from the people that it had was back in 1949, when popular support for it among peasants resulted in it gaining power and the right to govern, winning the contest between it and the Kuomintang. This mandate (not from heaven anymore, but from the ordinary people) has not been renewed for close to 58 years now, since it does not hold popular elections. So it got mightily spooked when protests by a bunch of students rapidly gained widespread support from many other parties, including worker’s unions, intellectuals, and most crucially, the average Joes. This was a manifestation of the rot and lack of freedom prevalent in the system at that time. The support that those students got begs the question of under what mandate does the CCP has for continuing to govern China? By right, in an election, the CCP would probably have lost government then.

It is a measure of how poor a government’s skills are when it has to resort to shooting its own people when they show their displeasure towards it.

Now, fast forward in 2007, China is definitely a country on the rise. It has firmly taken the well-trodden path of the Asian Tigers before it in liberalising its economy and attracting tonnes of FDIs. It also laid the foundations for its continued ascension through providing a solid educational system for its population and good infrastructure for businesses (unlike poor India). Then those Tigers would rake in the moolah through intensively exporting its goods, and gradually moving up in what they produce. The only differrence and hence additional difficulty that it faces is its ridiculously large size, both in terms of landmass and population.

But what now? There is a general consensus that China has two alternative paths to choose from. The first is what those Western commentators prefer: Initial phase of consolidation of economic strength through autocracy, followed by secondary phase of political liberalisation. Actually, in all fairness, so what if those Westerners love preaching this model? As an Asian, I find it totally logical and appealing as well. This model has been successfully followed by:

1. South Korea
Dictator: Park Chung Hee (1961-1980s)
Start of true democracy: 1987

2. Taiwan
Dictator: Chiang Kai-Shek (1960-1980s)
Start of true democracy: 1990s

For the alternative, we have the ‘Enjoy your wealth and forget about politics model’. Interestingly, I can only find one good example of this model: Singapore. Single-handedly hauled up from the third world and into the first through the herculean effort off Lee Kuan Yew in the phenomenal space of 30 years. But is this model sustainable? The success of this ‘personality model’ hinges upon an outstanding (or more) individuals such as Mr Lee. But what happens when Mr Lee and co. are eventually replaced by a batch of less virtuous (in terms of incorruptibility anyway) men? Then by virtue of this personality-centralised model, it would be extremely difficult to oust that leader without violence, since no viable opposition were allowed to form and internal checks and balances have already been subjugated by that bad leader. If that happens, then this whole model will collapse. That’s why the sometimes unsightly democracies of Taiwan and South Korea are still the better model compared to Singapore’s, since once a robust democratic system takes root, it doesn’t matter if a corrupt or incompetent leader becomes the leader there, as once his flaws start to show, he would be duly shown the door in the next election.

Right now, it would seem that China is firmly adhering to the ‘Singapore model’. But unlike Singapore, corruption would be much harder to control and eliminate for China as the government there has to oversee a much larger country. Things might be good now there, thanks to a somewhat ‘good’ crop of leaders running the country, but what if the equivalent of a Robert Mugabe assumed power in the CCP? Then without any checks and balances provided by democracy, the country would go to hell again. Democracy also provides dissatisfied citizens an outlet to vent their anger and change their government bloodlessly. As it stands now, how will these things be accomplished in China? Do the Mainland Chinese people really want to go through another chaotic uprising when they want to change an un-viable government?

“People shouldn’t be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of its people”.

If this statement does not apply a country, then something is not quite right there. Malaysians should do well to ponder on this as well.