China’s Enlightened One-Party Rule

July 2009

Recently whilst reading the Financial Times article Democracy Could Still Win In Iran I came across the sentence: In recent years, the global democratic revolution has threatened to run out of steam… China has made the case for a new form of enlightened one-party rule. The introduction to the China-West Intellectual Summit at the Glasshouse Forum moderated by Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times runs: It is now 20 years since Francis Fukuyama launched his renowned theory regarding the end of history. Liberal democracy on a capitalistic foundation had defeated its rivals. Those who did not adopt this system would be irrevocably left behind. The country that most clearly contradicts this hypothesis is China. It has seen unparalleled economic development and the regime has retained its grip on society and the economy... Can we now speak of a Chinese model, an authoritarian capitalism, which perhaps can even inspire others, in particular now when the crisis that has emanated from the USA drives many people to a critical view of the West?

When I wrote my article Not The End Of History, arguing that democracy is a flawed model and needs to be toned down, it was highly controversial stuff. Today it is openly talked about in the Financial Times. Although the FT has not endorsed the anti-democracy viewpoint, and especially my points (often lifted from Plato’s Republic) about the moral decline democracy engenders, I feel that it’s time for me to move on to a new subject.

My last article China Must Not Embrace Consumerism almost completed my views on the subject. A missing key here addressed is how the Chinese Government measures legitimacy, another is their need for a new religion.

The documentary one can play at The Glass House Summit website describes the Chinese concept of legitimacy well. The Chinese begin by defining the theoretical concept of legitimacy: A government is legitimate if and only if no better and feasible policy exists. Using this definition legitimacy is in practice demonstrated by the measured success of policy rather than the extent to which the public can influence it. Chinese technocrats rigorously optimise policy to maximise various numerical indices of success which include, for example, a growth index, a green index, a poverty index. Behind the calculation and optimisation of policy are vast numbers of academics, economics and statisticians. This advanced scientific approach to government is unique to China. In Japan, for example, during her heyday in the 1980s, policy was far more traditional and guided primarily by the LDP's pragmatic collaboration with big business, small business, agriculture, and professional groups.

In more detail, the speakers explain how politicians at all levels are constantly subject to the performance measurements and promoted or demoted accordingly. They describe a pragmatic scientific model of government without ideology or attachment in which policy is set by de-personalised rational businesslike analysis in order to maximize measurable statistics. Other keys to the success of the system include transparency and the careful scrutiny of the decision making process. This system theoretically transcends human personality so that the individual characteristics of government officials, such as popularity, status, wealth and integrity, have no bearing on policy. Democracy is almost by definition the antithesis of this de-personalised process, and is therefore deeply prone to human aberration, which is synonymous with incompetence. 

Nevertheless, I think there is more to the Chinese system than simply a Western Society with competent technocrats at the helm instead of incompetent elected representatives. To understand this the documentary makers should have tried to examine the Chinese mindset in more detail by posing moral conundrums in governmental policy revealing fundamentally different approaches between Western and Chinese intellectuals. Our Western Democracies revolve around sacrosanct individual liberty, Chinese moral choices are far more cohesive and utilitarian (eg the Three Gorges Dam). Also the goal of development in the West is individual voter contentment in the here and now, but I suspect the Chinese government is much more focused on the idealistic evolution of China (eg the push to instil an appreciation of Classical Music in the people in order to create an advanced culture).

Going back to Plato, the Timocracy of the noble Spartans was seen to be the most laudable form of government in Ancient Greece, but Plato longed to transcend the ossified traditions of that society and replace them with an advanced new intellectual viewpoint. The combination of engineered ideology free policy making with a cohesive and selfless viewpoint sounds like Plato's ideal system. However, society does not run on air alone. The leadership must still find a way to instill a laudable values system and prevent their people falling into the trap of rampant materialism as incomes rise (Japan). At the moment China is succeeding admirably, but what China really needs is a new religion.