SINOGRAPH Lessons from Tahrir to
Tiananmen By Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - Aside from geopolitics and the
balance of power, Egypt is also an issue of
principle - of democracy, an idea crucial to the
West, one that found its identity and role during
the last century in the fight against totalitarian
regimes.
Nowadays, democracy is vital for
the West and the global world order as the old
West is economically weak following the 2008
crisis, or perhaps in decline before the rise of
China and other developing countries.
It
was difficult for the Barack Obama administration
to stand by a repressive regime in Egypt
tyrannizing its own people. If it stood aloof
while former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was
killing unarmed demonstrators, then its policy
towards repressive
regimes like North
Korea, Iran and possibly, partly also
authoritarian China, would be unhinged. Those
regimes would be fully justified in dragging their
feet on all accusations regarding their lack of
democracy.
Half of the Western world says
it, the other half thinks (or hopes) for it: in
Cairo today, in Beijing tomorrow; Mubarak today,
the Chinese despot tomorrow. The powers of the
contagion of revolution are larger than those of
colds, and the viruses of street protests in
Tiananmen Square in 1989 will no doubt be back.
The West, bearer of universal values of democracy,
will emerge triumphant.
Or will it? For
the Chinese leaders, the current situation in
Egypt poses no risk, only advantages. If the
transition to democracy works in Cairo, prudent
China could accelerate its process of political
reform preceded by the example of Egypt. The
lesson of Tiananmen has been simply that of trying
to anticipate, and thus cull, mass protests by
setting forth reforms first.
If democracy
wins in Egypt, the global signals will be clear,
and China will have plenty of time to play along.
Its situation is by far better than that in Egypt
and Beijing in theory will have plenty of time to
adapt to the new circumstances. If, otherwise,
things go wrong, Chinese prudence will have
triumphed.
In reality, the attempts to
export Western democracy to the Islamic world,
Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, were all unsuccessful. In
Tehran, almost 30 years ago, it was an American
president, Jimmy Carter, who gave the green light
to drop the tyrannical shah. It took only a few
months because the moderate entrepreneurs of the
Iranian bazaar, who in the beginning had dominated
the protest, passed the hand to Ruhollah
Khomeini's Islamic fundamentalists.
The
Iranian religious revolution, which at the time
had to be a signal against the atheist Soviet
enemy, became the tombstone of Carter. The Shi'ite
Khomeinists managed to wangle between the two
blocs and survive well, so far, even the collapse
of the Soviet Union.
Nor did things go
better when the United States did not try to drive
the political process from the outside but instead
ventured into trying to micromanage democracy
implants in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Certainly, the two countries no longer
export terrorism nor pose a threat to neighbors,
but it is doubtful that today they are more
democratic than when the Americans entered, while
a war at various levels of intensity lasted some
10 years.
In Egypt, the conditions are no
better than anywhere else in the Muslim world.
Many women are forced into the medieval practice
of infibulations, over 20% of the population lives
below the poverty line, 30% are illiterate,
despite the supreme traditional wisdom of writer
Neguib Mahfuz or the library of Alexandria.
From this history, cynical Chinese senior
leaders, who experienced the revolution firsthand
in the days of Mao Zedong and the Gang of Four,
infer the possibility that the days after Mubarak
could be similar and even worse than the 30 years
of Mubarak's rule. That result would humiliate
America's simple democratic enthusiasm and would
give new weight to the prudent Chinese political
choice.
Beijing knows that as people took
to Tahrir Square the streets in Cairo several old
counter-revolutionary forces took in action in the
region. The Egyptian protest scares known infamous
despotisms of Syria or Libya, but also the less
notorious ones of Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Morocco.
They fear the contagious virus first and know that
the battle for their stability is being fought
today on the streets of Cairo.
The
situation will not be resolved anytime soon. The
push for elections in the coming weeks or months
will be tailed by international grain price hikes,
of which China's present drought and new appetite
for meat also contributed. These price hikes have
ignited the powders of protest in the first place.
In June, when the poor summer harvest
comes in, it could be a time of global inflation
for food products and this, in turn, could kindle
a new wave of demonstrations in Egypt and in the
whole Middle East. That is to say that in June, no
matter what government is in power, a tough choice
could arise: either topple the new government or
accept a violent crackdown of the more radical
protests.
Neither aid program that could
prevent the spiral of demonstrations would be easy
to implement. It would not be easy to move sacks
of foreign flour from the airports to the homes of
the poor; it would be much easier to sell them on
the black market. Two forces have an interest in
this happening - some corrupt profiteering
officials, but also the extremists who want a
radicalization of the protests because they ride
the hungry and angry masses.
The Chinese
are not gloating about the situation. They are
concerned because they see the confusion and
difficulties of their beacon, America, as a sign
of a tarnishing global order in which they have
thrived for over 30 years. Without America, China
does not know what to do and yet does not want to
be embroiled in setting a new political world
order.
Earlier, a People's Daily
commentary warned the United States of the dangers
of supporting a protest that could soon turn
anti-American. [1] If this happens the US would
shift attention from the Pacific to the Middle
East, which would then reinforce the need for
America to rely on China. This, too, Beijing saw
how within a few days after September 11, 2001,
the George W Bush administration, which had been
poised for confrontation with China, drastically
switched its priorities.
Certainly
American choices are stark in Egypt. Supporting a
crackdown would further smear the US image in the
Islamic world and globally. The alternatives, if
things spin out of control, are doomsday
scenarios: The Suez Canal blocked, choking off
trade between Asia and Europe, or Israel, fearing
for its survival because of a new anti-Jewish
Egyptian government, attacking Egypt, and shock
waves reverberating around the whole Muslim world.
In fact, can America guarantee that Egypt
will not fall in the hands of radical Muslims? Its
army is not professional, is made of conscripts
and the middle-ranking officers can be sympathetic
with the cause of their fellow protesters.
Furthermore, already once, with Gamal Abdel Nasser
in 1952, Egyptian colonels took matters in their
hands by staging a coup that changed the destiny
of the Islamic world.
There is a broader
issue, that democracy is not easy implant, and for
this reason before trying to spread it, one should
try to defend it where it exists, as there are
many places in the world where democracy was
suppressed.
This means that possibly
America should have been more careful, less
enthusiastic, as it is not certain that mass
protests mean that the majority of Egyptians are
against Mubarak's rule. But perhaps in present
circumstances, even if America's democracy will be
"beaten" in Egypt, its mistakes were unavoidable.
This is a further lesson for China. What
would China do is it were number one and had to
take an international stand in Egypt? Staying
aloof would just be siding against the protests
and thus against popular sentiments in the Muslim
world, something that for all its prudence and
realism could put China on the wrong side of
history, something that Beijing could pay a dear
price for sooner or later.
Now China can
comfortably seat back, comfortably side with
America and wait for developments to unfold just
knowing that it will win anyway as things develop
and it will learn a lot about how to be number one
in a distant or not so distant future.
Note 1. "Washington
doomed to be caught in Mideast unrest," by Li
Hongmei January 31, 2011.
Francesco
Sisci is a columnist for the Italian daily Il
Sole 24 Ore and can be reached at
fsisci@gmail.com
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