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Rotting from the Inside OutAuthor(s): Roderick MacFarquharSource: Foreign Policy, No. 154 (May - Jun., 2006), pp. 71-72Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25462041 .

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that, one by one, authoritarian regimes have fallen for the past century and today constitute fewer than one third of all states.

Some scholars, including Pei, attribute this trend to economics-new business elites, class ten sions, international capital flows. Yet these mech anisms may be the least important. Internal polit ical decay, evolving social values, pluralism, and governance crises can loom much larger. Histo ry clearly shows that democracy is wanted by

most people in most countries most of the time. China's own history is dotted with repeated pockets of pro-democracy agitation. Moral beliefs drive political outcomes, perhaps more than any thing else. "The power of the powerless," to use

Vaclav Havel's phrase, lies in the power of beliefs. Once a society demands democracy, elites will step forward to support that demand. But don't expect to see elites making such moves until very late in the game.

Political and economic decay itself hardly pre cludes democracy. I shudder to imagine Pei's for

midable analytic powers unleashed on Ferdinand Marcos-era Philippines, Enver Hoxha's Albania, Suharto's Indonesia, or Milton Obote's Uganda. Yet all of these countries are functioning democra

cies today. They have all consistently foiled the pes simistic predictions of ana

lysts and scholars. Indeed, over the past 30 years, com

munist regimes have been the most likely to give way to successful democracies.

Only a very small minority of them fell into any sort of sustained civil war or authoritarian relapse. If Albania can emerge from a half century of decay as a

successful democracy, why not China? It is easier to envision danger and failure than

it is hope and success. But hope and success are the most common outcomes of communist collapse. China's future is bright because the Communist Party's future is dim. We ill-prepare ourselves by liv ing in fear of this future. 11

Once a society demands democracy, elites will step

forward to support that demand. But don't expect

such moves until late U in the game.

ROTTING FROM THE INSIDE OUT By Rodetick MacFarquhar

M inxin Pei's detailed analysis of the "dark side" of China's economic miracle leads him

to believe that the country's political system is more likely to experience decay than democracy. Pei says that "[s]omeday soon, we will know whether such a flawed system can pass a stress test," such as a severe economic shock or political upheaval. One might caution Pei against using phrases such as "someday soon," because inertia has the poten tial to carry the Communist Party for some time to come. Nevertheless, Pei is right to point to the fragility of the Chinese political system.

In the Maoist era, that system was held togeth er by an undisputed leader, a well-disciplined and

Roderick MacFarquhar is Leroy B. Williams professor of his

tonr and political science at Harvard University.

relatively uncorrupt party, and a doctrine (Marx ism-Leninism-Maoism) that gave the Communists the authority to impose Mao Zedong's policies.

Underpinning the whole system were the soldiers of the People's Liberation Army. But the party's discipline, selflessness, and confidence were under mined by the assaults it suffered during the Cul tural Revolution. Afterward, its doctrine was effectively abandoned as part of Deng Xiaoping's reform program. As a result, in the 1989 Tianan

men Square massacre, the party proved to be politically impotent and the military had to save the day. Today, China is far richer and the party is co-opting potential opponents, but as Pei shows, corruption is greater, contempt for legal processes is widespread, and the willingness of China's citi zens to protest is increasing every day. Nobody

MAY JUNE 2006 71

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r FP Roundtable

believes that President Hu Jintao could play the role of imperial ruler to hold the system together.

What could turn this "decaying" system in a more hopeful direction? The history of China's 150 year struggle with modernity suggests it may require a maior shock to the rulinig establishment. This first happened in the war of 1894-95, when Japan defeat ed China. Although the Qing dynasty had suffered defeats to the British and the French earlier in the same centu ry, the Japanese victory was far more traumatic because Beijing ng4 thought of its A island neighbors as junior partners in the great enterprise of Chinese civiliza tion. In victory,

Japan was different. It was a European style nation state

that had proved itself superior to

China. The effect of this defeat was dra

matic. China's lead ers adopted radical reforms, Confu cianism was aban doned as the state doctrine, and, in 1912, the 2,000-year-old imperial system was replaced by a republic. It was the first great revolution of the 20th century.

The second shock to China's ruling elite was the decade-long Cultural Revolution that ended in 1976. When Deng and other survivors of Mao's purges took power in 1978, they found that while

Mao was plunging his country into chaos, anarchy, and bloodletting, economic miracles had blos somed throughout the rest of East Asia. The region

was no longer poverty stricken, except for China. Fearful that the party could not survive without finally bringing prosperity to its people, Deng abandoned the Soviet-style socialist model in favor of economic growth by whatever capitalist means

possible. Instead of shutting out the world, Deng embraced it, sending out students and inviting in corporations. But at Tiananmen in 1989, China reaped the whirlwind of two decades of change.

Only the iron will and authority of Deng and his fellow gerontocrats nreserved Mao's revolution.

In this century, Hu is trying to adapt China with its 1.3 billion citizens-to the modern world, and particularly to the information revolution, by attempting to resuscitate an ideology defined by Karl Marx in the 19th century and a system of government devised by Vladimir Lenin in the 20th century. Such a process would be nigh on impos sible even without the decay Pei describes. Hu's success is heavily dependent upon sustaining the rates of economic growth achieved in the 1980s and 1 990s. That means the Chinese political sys tem is relying on the buoyancy of the global econ omy. But even a healthy global economy will not protect China's ruling elites if their internal prob lems are not solved. 1D

72 FOREIGN POLICY

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