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Hard work begins for China
After Olympics are over, will the giant clam try to shut itself again, now that it no longer needs the goodwill of the outside world?
- By Amir Taheri, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:32 August 19, 2008
For a decade, whenever faced with a difficult decision, China's leaders have used a convenient way out: Let's wait until after the Olympics.
To ensure it would win the right to host the games, China developed what its leaders have labelled a “no enemies'' foreign policy. In practice, this meant treating every tinpot dictator as an equal and every Third World corrupt regime sweet with aid, subsidies, and bribes.
When it came to relations with the major democracies, the policy meant the creation of an equilibrium mostly based on false promises. The Olympics excuse has kept China's traditional rivalry with a range of countries from Russia to India and passing by Japan and South Korea on hold.
The Olympics excuse has also been used on domestic issues. At least two party congresses, where national strategy is debated and fixed, have danced around the major issues for the past decade. The full legitimisation of private property, the redefinition of the role of the Communist Party, the development of a credible system of social protection, and the much talked of decentralisation have all been touched upon, but left for “after the Olympics''.
Other issues left untouched, thanks to the Olympics excuse, include the modernisation and reorganisation of the Chinese army, a vast and highly costly but inefficient machine, the streamlining of a bloated and corrupt bureaucracy and a rejuvenation of the leadership at middle and lower levels.
Finally, the Olympics excuse was used to justify lack of action on such explosive issues as ethnic unrest and religious grievances.
The Olympics were supposed to finalise China's return to the mainstream of international life, opening the way for its assumption of a leadership role in the global arena in an uncertain era.
Waiting for the Olympics was also used by the outside world to justify that amounts to a policy gap on China. Optimists hoped that the Olympics would persuade the Chinese leaders to open the country further and adopt more moderate policies at home and abroad. The idea was to do nothing to upset what was supposed to be China's long march towards reform democratisation.
Pessimists, on the other hand, believed that there was nothing that the outside world could do to influence developments inside a still hermetic political system.
Amazingly, almost everyone agreed to play the game according to Chinese rules. Even the dissidents called for a period of calm in the hope that a successful Olympics might persuade the leadership in Beijing to accept greater liberalisation. Even the Dalai Lama said he was praying for China's success in hosting the games.
Terrorists did not succeed in disrupting the games, supposing they had ever wanted to do so. The United States and the European Union toned down their campaign for human rights with the claim that a China busy organising the Olympics should not be pressed too hard. No one boycotted these games and more than 80 heads of state and government appeared for the opening ceremonies — an all time record.
So, what is going to happen now that the games are over and the Olympics excuse is gone?
Will China cast a fresh glance at a foreign policy that has made it the mainstay of several despotic and terror-sponsoring regimes?
Will China decide to make the final break with an autocratic system that still uses Communism as a label?
Despite some inevitable Potemkin style trompe l'oeil events, the games revealed China as a new nation with a great deal of positive energy. They also added a major element to the treasury of common memories that ultimately constitute every nation. It is no longer the Long March led by Mao Zedong that constitutes the central theme of modern China's national memory. At the same time the nightmare of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is fading behind the joyful fireworks of the Olympics.
And now, for China, the really hard work begins. Will the giant clam try to shut itself again, now that it no longer needs the goodwill of the outside world? Or will it feel more self confident as a result and decide to open itself further.
The conventional wisdom at this time is that China's adoption of a modified form of capitalism and the pluralism that it will eventually generate is now irreversible.
Conventional wisdom, however, is not always right. The Chinese ruling elite is divided between reformists and supporters of the status quo ante. Portraits of the Great Helmsman may have disappeared from public view for the duration of the games. But a good chunk of the elite, still drunk on the heady wine of Maoism, is biding its time. The final purge, both in terms of policy and personnel, has not yet taken place.
For a decade, China has lived in what amounted to an historic parenthesis. Now that parenthesis is closing, we must all wonder what is going to happen during the next decade. The truth is that the international system needs a positive input from China. A policy of nay-saying and prevarication cannot deal with dangers, such as nuclear proliferation spearheaded by North Korea and Iran, that could ultimately affect China's own security.
Domestically, no amount of nationalistic rhetoric could satisfy demands for greater ethnic, cultural and religious freedoms. The growing urban middle class will not remain content with Guizot-style get-rich-and-shut-up politics. The 300 million or so poverty stricken seasonal workers roaming from one end of the country to another could emerge as a veritable human tsunami, destroying all that China has built since the reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping a generation ago.
Just as the world needs China, China also needs the world. However, before China is able to punch at its own weight in the international arena, it needs to decide what kind of society it wants to be. The games are over, let the debate begin.
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