For many visiting officials, today's China is a source of wonder. Despite the irresistible charm of the country's authoritarian government (specifically for the political elite) and growth, it is worth discussing what policy lessons it has for countries that seek to reflect their economic growth in the coming decades. Be careful, when it comes to lessons, some can be learned, while others must be unlearned.
Many Western analysts denigrate China's economic achievements under the premise of the extractive nature of its institutions and suggest that the Communist Party government and sustained economic growth will ultimately be mutually exclusive. And those who celebrate their vertiginous GDP growth want the developing world to emulate this state-led growth model. Naturally, the latter is mainly composed of politicians representing dysfunctional developing states. For them, they believe, it is a recipe for success and, when given the "right environment," they can achieve a great miracle of growth.
However, when the heads of representative democracies lament the absence of the "Chinese model" in their country, it represents their desire to exercise power along the lines of the Communist Party of China (CCP). They may think that their bad government is rooted in the inability to change things on a whim, while, in fact, the opposite is usually true. The impunity of our former rulers, the most attributable to the non-elected lot, encouraged them to take measures that seriously damaged the construction of the nation.
The fundamental principles of the state of Madina delegitimize the authoritarian government.
For our country, with its fragile institutions, the desire of the Chinese model is far from ideal. It is based on a rudimentary understanding of China's success in poverty alleviation, not necessarily synonymous with human development, and the number of officials jailed for corruption charges. It is chilling because of its contempt for our socio-political realities, which should be the main priority of a democratic configuration. The most worrying thing is that it underlines the failure of the ruling elite to understand a basic lesson in our history: each time a ruler forced an intervention from outside the constitutional framework, it caused insurmountable damage.
China may have some lessons for economies around the world, even more so for the Global South. However, it is important that these nations be aware of their own needs and limitations. They must understand contemporary China in the context of their economic and political institutions and their compatibility with their indigenous modes of government. The current rulers of Pakistan, who aspire to emulate the state of Madina, can reflect on how the fundamental principles of that state and authoritarianism would develop together.
In the institutional environment of China, the CCP has supreme supremacy and has economic institutions as subordinates. In general terms, the performance of the latter can be classified into two phases. The first under the presidency of Mao, during 1949-1976, and the second as it was after Mao. Maoism boosted the national economy from $ 60 billion in 1960 to $ 154 billion in 1976, but is marred by the serious consequences of political decisions to introduce the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. This phase is characterized by multiple boom and bust cycles and human tragedies.
Despite widespread miseries, dissent was not tolerated within the CCP, much less from outside. Deng Xiaoping, a decorated military general, fell from Mao in disgrace and was attacked by the radical Red Guard for suggesting economic alternatives outside the Marxist-Leninist mold. Mao's death in 1976 created a vast power vacuum as he had accumulated enormous authority. There was a power struggle within the CCP and at this decisive moment in the history of China, Deng prevailed over the Maoists.
In the following years, Deng led a radical economic reform, which was adopted by Western democracies. In the context of the Cold War, and due to a distorted worldview on their part, Western leaders argued that economic prosperity will expel the country from the communist fold. That hope was cut in Tiananmen Square in 1989, but, as expected, Western corporations pressured their governments to forget in a matter of a few years. The global capitalist establishment flocked to communist China in its search for cheap, fragile labor and imperfect environmental regulations. Since the CCP had firm control over economic resources, namely land, labor and capital, the Western opening helped the party to extract more value and further consolidate its iron control.
China's growth history is incomplete without contextualizing the external factors that helped catalyze it. Second, the likelihood of the Maoists surpassing Deng was the same, in which case the CCP and, therefore, the Chinese nation would have maintained the Maoist course. Third, perhaps most importantly, authoritarianism is plagued with frailties. His unipolar vision of human society considers dissent as a "force of evil" and justifies repression. It is based on the legitimacy of conformism, as defined by a few, rather than empathy. His playbook lacks tools to deal with the diversity of thoughts and beliefs. Today Hong Kong and Xinjiang offer case studies in this regard.
Pakistanis will find these lessons easy to understand. For example, the growth driven by Ayub's help enriched the political and business elites of Western Pakistan, but fostered a sense of alienation in eastern Pakistan. The legitimacy of their demand for provincial autonomy and democratic government was enshrined in the movement for a separate homeland for Muslims from the subcontinent. Ayub's authoritarian measures produced the most painful chapter in our history in a very short time. Despite commendable work to save national dignity and place Pakistan among the leaders of the Muslim world during the 1970s, Bhutto's authoritarian instincts organized his misadventures in Balochistan and resentment toward political opposition across the country.
Frankly, we remain without resilient institutions that defend the values of equity, justice and responsibility, which partly explains the disoriented opinions of our rulers on governance and economic policy. More than anything, we must cultivate a development discourse within the framework provided by the Constitution and strengthen our elected institutions at the local, provincial and national levels. Maybe that road to redemption is long. But it is the one that offers sustainable solutions and can lead us to reflect some features of Madina's enviable state, whose rules were not written in the language of compulsion, but of compassion.
The writer is an analyst.
Twitter: @sohaibrmalik
Published on Dawn, October 28, 2019
Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1513346/humane-authoritarianism-anyone