SPEAKING
FREELY China's dilemma: power vs
freedom By James A Dorn
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
In a recent survey
of nearly 6,000 high-income, college-educated
individuals in 25 countries, the Edelman Trust
Barometer found that 43% trusted government
institutions. In the United States that figure was
45%, while in China it was 75%. The fact that more
of the "informed public" in China trust government
than in the United States may seem puzzling.
America has a constitution that limits the
power of government and protects individual
rights; China has no genuine rule of law, a
one-party state, and weak or nonexistent
protection of human
rights. How can
successful people in China have greater trust in
government than those in America?
The
answer is simple: in China the surest path to
riches is through power; in America it is through
freedom. The all-encompassing hold on political
power by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its
control of the commanding heights of the economy
mean that those who hold power are privileged in
the race to the top of the economic ladder. Even
with more than three decades of economic reform,
political reform has seriously lagged.
There is no independent judiciary to
safeguard rights to life, liberty, and property.
State-owned banks lend to state-owned enterprises,
all of which are run by the party elite. Asking
the "princelings" if they trust government is like
asking children if they like candy. If the Edelman
Trust Barometer had asked ordinary Chinese whether
they trusted government institutions, their
answer, if they were free to express themselves,
would be an emphatic "no!"
There are some
independent thinkers in China who recognize that
the inequality of wealth is due to the inequality
of power. As long as the CCP holds a monopoly on
power, economic life will be politicized and
corruption will be pervasive. Deng Xiaoping was
willing to allow people to get rich and began to
move China toward greater economic freedom in
1978, but there has not been sufficient progress
on limiting the power of government.
China's dilemma is that if the CCP wants
to improve the quality of life, it must allow
greater freedom of choice, but that will threaten
its monopoly on power - thus the struggle between
power and freedom. Ai Weiwei, perhaps China's most
famous dissident, aptly notes, "In a society like
this there is no negotiation, no discussion,
except to tell you that power can crush you."
What China needs most is not democracy but
limited government and the rule of law. That is
why Mao Yushi founded The Unirule Institute of
Economics in Beijing in 1993, to promote what
Nobel Laureate economist F. A. Hayek called "the
constitution of liberty." On May 4, Mao will be
the first Chinese scholar to receive the
prestigious Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing
Liberty, awarded every two years by the Cato
Institute in Washington, D.C. (It is uncertain
whether he will be allowed to attend.)
Like Lao Tzu, China's first liberal, Mao
Yushi understands that harmony - both social and
economic - emerges from freedom under just rules,
not from orders from above. Lao Tzu wisely
counseled, "When the government is too intrusive,
people lose their spirit. Act for the people's
benefit. Trust them; leave them alone."
The principle of wu wei
(nonintervention) recognizes that people should be
free to choose and be held accountable. With free
private markets - in resources, goods, and ideas -
mistakes tend to be corrected more rapidly than
under central planning, minimizing the risk of
large errors. As such, the quality of life tends
to improve continuously.
Since rights to
life, liberty, and property reside in individuals
and the legitimate function of government is to
protect those rights, a just government depends on
the trust of the people. Even an emperor can lose
the "mandate of heaven" if he violates that trust.
Mao Yushi has had the courage to criticize the
morality of the Chinese legal system and to
question the legacy of Mao Zedong, saying that Mao
was not a god and he should be held accountable
for the deaths of tens of millions of people
during the Great Famine (1958-61) and the Cultural
Revolution (1966-76).
Premier Wen Jiabao
has called for political reform and further
economic liberalization, but under his leadership
little progress has occurred. His rebuke and
purging of Bo Xilai, former party chief of
Chongqing, reveals a growing struggle for power
between liberals and hardliners. In 2010, Xi
Jinping, who is expected to become China's next
president later this year, congratulated Bo for
his "Red Culture Campaign" designed to stir up
popular support for the so-called Chongqing model
of development. That model is more state-led than
market-led, and the effects of corruption are now
becoming evident.
State capitalism is
consistent with the party's power but not with the
quest for a "harmonious society." Top-down
planning requires obedience; freedom is seen as
dangerous. China needs spontaneous harmony, not
forced harmony. In China, the wealthy class is
largely the privileged political class-and with a
single powerful party one either gets in line or
tries to exit the country.
The attempt to
exit China's "big government, small market" system
is seen in the increase in visa applications by
wealthy Chinese: from 2007 to 2011, the number of
applications for investment immigration visas to
the United States grew by 1,000 %. Those who can
afford to invest at least $1 million in the United
States want to leave China because they are
uncertain about the future, especially the
security of their assets due to government
corruption and the lack of a transparent legal
system that protects property rights. They also
want their children to be independent thinkers.
One entrepreneur simply says, "The problem is that
government power is too great."
Being
skeptical of big government is the right attitude.
The US constitution was designed to limit the size
and scope of government and to allow people to
pursue their own happiness under a just system of
law. "The sum of good government," wrote Thomas
Jefferson, is "a wise and frugal Government, which
shall restrain men from injuring one another,
shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their
own pursuits of industry and improvement, and
shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread
it has earned."
The United States could
best teach China by adhering to the principles of
a liberal order that rests on non-intervention and
freedom under the law of the constitution. The
challenge for both China and America is to
recognize that rights reside in the people, that
those rights are not positive welfare rights - to
"do good" with other people's money - but equal
rights to be left alone to pursue happiness.
The right balance between freedom and
power is the test of good government. Without the
free flow of ideas and competition, the voices of
the Chinese people will be lost, and exit will be
difficult but attractive.
James A
Dorn is a China specialist at the Cato
Institute in Washington, DC and editor of
China in the New Millennium.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their
say.Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing. Articles submitted for this section
allow our readers to express their opinions and do
not necessarily meet the same editorial standards
of Asia Times Online's regular contributors.
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