
Could 1989 Have Led to Democracy in China? - pattusk
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/could-1989-have-led-democracy-china-56437
======
gumby
This is an intriguing estate but I think there was sufficient institutional
momentum that nothing would have changed. In particular this line jumps out:

> What if China's hardline military ruler, the eighty-five-year-old chain-
> smoker Deng Xiaoping, had passed away at the beginning of 1989 instead of
> hanging on for another seven years?

I think the same authoritarian system would have survived, however we would
instead see statements like “if only the radical reformer Deng had survived
and continued his reforms then 1989 could have been a turning point of
democracy.“ It’s like the people who say “what if Kruschiev had not been
deposed”

~~~
baybal2
> “what if Kruschiev had not been deposed”

if Khruschev had not been deposed by Brezhnev, he would've been deposed by
somebody else.

Yes, the West erred judging Khruschev's character as a "typical communist,"
but it was not wrong in judging the innate characteristics of a social
construct like a communist party.

For single party system, electing somebody like Brezhnev or Xi is pretty much
like for a thermodynamic system to reach its equilibrium state. For a
communist party not doing that will mean to stop being a communist party.

The goal of such system is a pursuit of an ultimate status quo and rejection
of all change — a good analogy here will also be thermodynamics: the heat
death of the universe.

The principal point on which Brezhnev or Xi were put in power was the need for
"reliable men to keep things as they are"

Some people ask me when I state that point "How this stands when Xi totally
decimating the same establishment that brought him in while doing so?" I say
that it is perfectly consistent with the stated goal: Xi purged people who
rocked the boat, risking bringing "the dreaded change."

It is a collective interest of party members to preserve CCP's power, as it is
needed for preserving their own personal power, but preservation of individual
party member's power is not necessarily a part of that overarching collective
interest.

Thought some people who wanted that were purged along the way, in overall, the
CCP as a political institute benefited.

------
basetop
"A hypothetical Chinese transition to democracy would probably have followed
the East Asian pattern, not the Eastern European one. In Eastern Europe, the
Soviet Union didn't so much democratize as disintegrate. China might have
started a transition to democracy in 1989, but it wasn’t on the verge of
breaking up."

China would have disintegrated like the Soviet Union ( or like the china of
the 1800s after the opium war ) rather than democratized like South Korea. You
can't compare an ethnically and linguistically united country like South Korea
( buttressed by the US ) with a large multiethnic nation like China.
Especially considering foreign powers, especially britain, europe and the US,
have a vested interest in destabilizing china.

If china "democraticized" in 1989, we'd probably see a replay of post opium
war china. A country that large and diverse, with a weakened central
authority, would have been dismembered and picked apart, like in China in the
1800s and the Soviet Union/Russia in the 1990s.

Looking at what the soviet union and russia in particular went through in the
90s to even today and what china went through in the 90s to today, I doubt any
chinese citizen is upset at the crackdown. But it is an interesting "what if".

~~~
uranusjr
> I doubt any chinese citizen is upset at the crackdown.

Tibetans and Uygurs may beg the differ.

— Or maybe you already discounted them from being Chinese? I’m fine with that
definition too ;)

~~~
basetop
I said china is a multi-ethnic nation unlike south korea, didn't I. I highly
doubt tibetans or ugyhurs would celebrate going through 90s russian life.

Tibet and Xinjiang ( and to a limited degree hong kong ) are interesting
because europe in particular wants to use them to break china. And
interestingly enough, the both tibet and xinjiang were invaded by foreign
powers ( britain and soviet union ) in order to destabilize china. Both times,
most tibetans and uyghurs sided with china.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Xinjiang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Xinjiang)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_expedition_to_Tibet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_expedition_to_Tibet)

My point is that most people just care about their well being. As long as they
are getting wealthier, they don't care. If china's economic situation worsens
dramatically, then I suspect things might be different. But I doubt any
chinese citizens of any ethnicity wants their family to experience 90s russia
or 1800s china. Just like no one here wants to go through a great depression (
which was mild compared to what 90s russia and 1800s china experienced ).

~~~
34r45sdg
The Uyghurs siding with China was before China started rounding them up and
putting them in camps. The Uyghurs now live under the worst dystopian future
humanity could envisage -- Checkpoints with phone scans, mandatory government
spyware that scans for illicit content, deep facial recognition and social
profiling EVERYWHERE. Its a different time, and a different China. I hope the
Uyghur rise up and smash this. I wouldn't bet on it happening.

------
42yeah
China has seen the days of democrats coming to power and China killed them. It
has the experience in doing so. IMO when a democratic power is rising in
China, China knows how to kill it swiftly. So uh, China becoming democratic is
still highly unlikely, at least within 30~40 years I guess.

~~~
simonh
I think the most likely route at the moment is schism and fragmentation within
the existing power structure along geographic lines, as happened with the
Soviet Union. I suspect this would only be possible in the face of sever
economic crisis, in which the economic and political interests of the regions
severely diverged from those of the central authorities.

It's difficult to see this actually happening though. China is pretty
prosperous and can probably weather even a severe economic crisis. The Soviet
Union was far more ethnically and regionally diverse. It also had the Eastern
Bloc countries under a loose enough control that it was possible for them to
slip out of it's fingers, which started a domino effect that China isn't
really vulnerable to in that way.

~~~
krageon
Russia was also hilariously poor, even when it was relatively powerful. Saying
Russia is more ethnically diverse than China is an interesting statement,
given the enormous breadth and width of China and all the different
subcultures and people living there. Unless this is a skin colour thing? I
don't really understand ethnocentric reasoning

~~~
simonh
Ethnic politics in China is like everything else a complete stitch-up. China,
though big, is a fraction of the size of the USSR, which was 70% Slavs while
China is 91% Han. That's less than a third as much ethnic diversity. The
problem is a lot of even that diversity is fake.

There are some powerful members of the ruling Chinese elite that 'belong to
minorities', but the threshold for that is having one ethnic minority
grandparent, who themselves might have had only one ethnic minority
grandparent. Oh, and ethnic minority groups get some educational advantages,
so it's an advantage to get the classification. This means the ranks of
minorities get heavily packed with people who are in practice
indistinguishable genetically and culturally from the average Han, but have
the right to represent and speak for their minority group.

Thus in theory minorities are very well represented, get various advantages
and have a voice in politics and society. In practice the people who get to do
so are hand picked by the party and have the most tenuous links imaginable to
the minority they supposedly represent.

~~~
krageon
Leaving aside the frankly problematic amount of veiled racism, China is
_large_. There are a lot of people in it so even if 91% is Han, they might
still have more other people in it than Russia does.

------
duxup
Has the CCP ever seemed to WANT to lean towards democracy?

I'm not convinced that simply a leadership change would be enough to change
the fact that the CCP first and foremost wishes to preserve its own power,
ideology or anything else is secondary.

------
throwaway5752
The article's author (just) wrote this book:

[https://www.amazon.com/New-Authoritarianism-Populism-
Tyranny...](https://www.amazon.com/New-Authoritarianism-Populism-Tyranny-
Experts/dp/1509533095/) "The New Authoritarianism: Trump, Populism, and the
Tyranny of Experts"

 _" In this provocative and highly original book, Salvatore Babones argues
that democracy has been undermined by a quiet but devastating power grab
conducted by a class of liberal experts. They have advanced a global rights-
based agenda which has tilted the balance away from the lively and vibrant
unpredictability of democratic decision-making toward the creeping
technocratic authority of liberal consensus. Populism represents, contends
Babones, an imperfect but reinvigorating political flood that has the
potential to sweep away decades of institutional detritus and rejuvenate
democracy across the West."_

Also, The National Interest has some notoriety for having published
[https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-bear-the-
elephant-1...](https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-bear-the-
elephant-13098), by Maria Butina, the convicted Russian agent.

Just for context.

edit: even more curiously, he has also recently written
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00X668R0K](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00X668R0K)
"Sixteen for '16: A progressive agenda for a better America":

 _" The progressive movement is on the march in America and this accessible
book points toward a destination. Sixteen for '16 offers a new agenda for the
2016 US election crafted around sixteen core principles that all progressives
can believe in, from securing jobs to saving the Earth. Decades of destructive
social, economic, and political policies have devastated poor, working, and
even middle class American communities. It is now clear to everyone that the
emperor has no clothes, that harsh austerity does not bring prosperity, and
that the wealthy have no intention to see their wealth trickle down. Each
generation is no longer better off than the ones that came before. America now
needs jobs, infrastructure, a rededication to public education, universal
healthcare, higher taxes on higher incomes, a more secure Social Security, an
end to the rule of the bankers, stronger unions, a living minimum wage, better
working conditions, an end to the prison state, secure reproductive rights,
voter equality, a more moral foreign policy, a more sane environmental policy,
and action on global warming. Sixteen for '16 is a manifesto which makes the
argument for each of these positions, clearly, concisely, and supported by
hard data. As ambitious as these policies are, they represent a beginning, not
an end. The progressive agenda laid out in Sixteen for '16 charts a realistic
path toward a better tomorrow."_

What the heck is this Babones guy? This is inadvertently a much more
interesting submission than it seemed, for very different reasons than
intended.

~~~
yostrovs
Would you be providing similar context if The Nation or Huffington Post would
be the source? What about New York Times or CNN?

~~~
frostburg
I mean, the name of the source implied that there was likely to be some
material of that kind to find, so it's helpful in its way. The fact that you
find the context damning but seem to be unhappy that it was revealed is
worrying. I don't actually agree with the author, but it's not -that- bad of a
position.

EDIT: it's actually a lot stranger on a second read

~~~
yostrovs
I don't find it damning. You are the one that does. But would you mind
answering my question please?

~~~
frostburg
I'm not the parent poster, but I'm somewhat confused now about the author and
need further reading.

------
EastToWest
The title is big but the amount of substance in it is low.

Not sure if there is anything new discussed in this short essay.

------
baybal2
I'd say, very unlikely even if Zhao and Hu were given a go. Both of them were
held pretty much like a decoration to appease the West.

A lot people exaggerate their role. Even back then, very few Chinese ever
heard of them.

> What if the students in Tiananmen Square had peacefully dispersed, but
> continued to work quietly for democratic reform throughout the 1990s?

Then they would've been quietly hunted down to the last one without making
much of a bang. People entertaining themselves with such scenarios have little
understanding of the way the mindset of totalitarian regime leaders work: in
1989, the CCP was _scared to death_. Loss of power in any form for such people
invariably means either a trip to Hague, or to their own secret jails.

Peaceful political change don't happen when the power holders are ready to do
anything to keep their power. In such cases, only violence works.

I truly despise people who call for "peaceful resistance" in time when people
are being showered with bullets. Such people bear as much responsibility for
loss of human life as one who do the killing.

~~~
NotPaidToPost
> Then they would've been quietly hunted down to the last one without making
> much of a bang.

That's pure conjecture, of course.

One thing to keep in mind is that the events of Tiananmen (and beyond,
actually, as they did not involve only Beijing and only the students) scared
the government, as you mention.

That's why the reaction was so harsh and the backlash so durable.

The government might have taken a softer stance if the events had been less
threatening.

------
Fnoord
Another question to ask is: _did the fall of the Soviet Union led to democracy
in Russia?_ This fellow [1] whom you might've heard of has been leading Russia
in one way or another since 1999.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin)

