China's robust economic growth: It's a dog's life sans freedom

N.D. Batra, The Statesman, Asia News Network/Calcutta

China has been growing at the rate of 8-9 percent for the past two decades or so, and is expected to become an economic and military heavyweight, if not a superpower, in the coming decades.

Since the authoritarian rule has not held back China from growing at a phenomenal rate, it is legitimate to ask: How could they do so much in such a short time without freedom and civil liberties?

Even Vietnam has begun to follow the Chinese model. Perhaps Francis Fukuyama should revise his thesis which he prematurely delivered soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union: "What we are witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or a passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such; that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."

Rather too soon, I am afraid, the end of Communism brought about a sense of complacency, a grand illusion as if it were the final triumph of freedom.

Of course, that did not happen. It did not happen in Russia after the Soviet Union disintegrated; and it did not happen in China in spite of the 1989 Tiananman Square pro-democracy protests; and in spite of rapid economic growth and broadening prosperity under state-controlled market capitalism.

Democracy did not happen in the Muslim-Arab world where Islamic fundamentalism has been taking hold of the hearts and minds of the people since long.

In fact, after the collapse of the Soviet Union worldwide authoritarianism might have increased. China has no doubt ceased to be an imminent threat since its economic growth has become increasingly tied up with: search for energy and other raw material; foreign direct investment; and exports, especially to the United States.

Today China, ironically, is the United States' biggest foreign lender; and so, unsurprisingly, human rights including Tibet have ceased to be an issue in Sino-U.S. relations.

On a recent visit to China, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow urged the Chinese to spend more on consumer goods; he never mentioned democracy.

Do you know why? Because China, according to The Wall Street Journal, would be accumulating "a US$100-billion trade surplus for the year -- triple last year's number -- it must reduce reliance on trade and build up internal demand by encouraging the Chinese to spend more."

For China, consuming what they manufacture is more important than political freedom.

Between the United States and Saudi Arabia and other seemingly pro-U.S. Muslim-Arab countries in the region, where fundamentalism has been holding sway for long, human rights and freedom were seldom an issue.

After the 2001 terrorists attacks, the United States bonded with Pakistan using financial and military ties to make it an ally against the Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorism. And to maintain its hold over Pakistan, the United States soft-peddled the issue of even the black-marketing of nuclear technology by one of the worlds most notorious scientists, A.Q. Khan.

The United States has not given up the realpolitik of playing games with the devil regardless of its newly-found messianic fervor of spreading freedom universally. The rhetoric of freedom and liberty seems to be a posture of public diplomacy for winning the hearts and minds of the Arab-Muslim world.

George W. Bush believes that the United States would remain vulnerable to terrorism so long as tyranny and hate ideology prevailed abroad and for which, according to him, there's no other solution except to expand freedom.

"The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world... Across the generations, we have proclaimed the imperative of self- government because no one is fit to be a master and no one deserves to be a slave," said Bush at the beginning of his second term.

But an Arab/Muslim might say, look at China, where 1.3 billion people work day and night to churn out goods for the entire world without much ado about freedom.

When Bush goes to China, is he going to challenge President Hu Jintao: Democratize or else?

With Iraq in mind, Bush has no doubt been steadfast in what he had said earlier: "Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill, and would be dishonorable to abandon. Yet, because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom."

Elections in Afghanistan and the Palestinian Authority raised some hope that eventually elections and sharing of power in Iraq might bring about the beginning of law and order in Iraq, too.

The successful recent elections in Iraq for the approval of the Constitution was a momentous event, a new day when millions of Iraqis exercised their freedom. But freedom to vote is not enough because it does not mean the end of violence, poverty and unemployment, which provide a fertile ground for more terrorism.

The Bush freedom rhetoric and new-found zest for public diplomacy must include economic aid including preferential trade for poor Muslim countries such as Bangladesh and Indonesia as well as for other nations which have been making valiant efforts to grow economically and control Islamic jihadism at the same time.

Instead of looking to China as a model, they should look to the United States. That is the biggest challenge for the U.S. public diplomacy today.

The writer is Professor of Communications, Norwich University, Vermont.