While every effort must be made to encourage China to observe the conventions concerning Human Rights, cease their paranoia about dissent, open up the media and allow more participation of the people, the Western version of democracy being merely a multiparty system does not guarantee any of the former mentioned ideals being attained. A one-party government if lead by benevolent leaders who encourage participation by all and listen to the concerns of their people can be preferable. Look at the incredible waste of money in the effort to be allowed to be Leader of each party so that one can fight for the ultimate Leadership of the country that is occuring in USA. The West will never succeed in bullying other nations to change their ways to become 'Democracies' when they can see what that entails.

Lydia,

If you think the Chinese government listens to the Chinese people you are kidding yourself! I lived there for two years and it functions just like any other oligarchy where the top guys do what they want, steal from the peasants and are generally unnaccountable.

However, I cannot agree with Chin that allowing the Chinese to misgovern themselves is appeasement. The concept of appeasement is only relevent where the rival power is expansionist and represents an existential threat to us. The mainland Chinese show no signs of generalised expansionism or military belligerance towards the West.

Furthermore, they do not have an exportable theory of government - even the Chinese kleptocrats don't suggest that the West or any non-Chinese should adopt the current mainland Chinese style of government so I don't see them as a serious threat to us.

Lydia,

This is the kind of black armband or grievance mongering attitude of the soft left that we see so often today.

You say >>” A one-party government if lead by benevolent leaders ... can be preferable”

Sorry, where exactly has this benevolent dictatorship taken place?

There are no guarantees in life. But our western style of democracy allows the majority to bring down the government if they are not happy with its performance. Many soft lefties get confused on this point, believing that because they are unhappy with gov’t, yet are unable to dismiss it, it is not a true democracy. What you are missing is that it doesn’t guarantee crackpots and minorities a veto, only the majority of registered voters.

You say>> “Look at the incredible waste of money in the effort to be allowed to be Leader of each party so that one can fight for the ultimate Leadership of the country that is occuring in USA.”

How is this even relevant to the subject under discussion? If anything, the American system is more democratic than ours.

You say>>” The West will never succeed in bullying other nations to change their ways to become 'Democracies' when they can see what that entails”

Your quaint and frankly naïve explanation of what the West is trying to do is not surprising. The left, who value symbols and ideas over peoples lives and freedoms, allowed the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur to be carried out because they were committed to talking about the problem, not actually dealing with it. The soft lefties love the talking shops, like the toothless and fatally flawed UN, because it gives them the illusion that they are doing something and salves their conscience about standing by while people die.

On virtually any index of freedom or welfare you care to name, the West outdoes China many times over. China is not free and dissidents like Lydia would face jail, reeducation camps or execution if they criticized the state as they are free to do here

I don't think the West will ever "push" China to democracy; the Chinese nature rests strongly in the principles of Confuscianism where filial loyalty, respect for learning and elders are strong elements.
Sure, Mao's repressive dictatorship ran China rigidly for over half a century, but don't overlook a major example of "soft" socialism and huge economic capitalistic sucess sitting just 146 km away...the Republic of China on Taiwan.
It had its present origin in the ruthless autocracy of Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomingtan who operated a one-party government, but also listened to respected, educated, informed experts for advice.
In the late 1970s, the country's outstanding manufacturing, trade and economic sucess saw a lessening of autocracy and the legal formation of an opposition political party.
The ruling Kuomingtan continued to take advantage of Taiwan's unique central position of a nation sitting between the trading economies of Japan, it's previous coloniser, USA, and mainland China, and took up the best of which each power had to offer.
Taiwan is now probably the most influential country in the Pacific in terms of overseas investment, capital assets, productivity and a harmonious lifestyle.
It is definitely influencing mainland China with its example of a positive capitalist society, and is probably exerting enormous subtle influence on the population to follow suit.
This is one form of Chineseness influencing another.
With this, may well come a from of "softer" socialism leaning towards the political and social freedoms enjoyed by many Western societies, but it will have to grow from within China. I don't believe that an external way of life can be forced on a nation and acepted by its dwellers.
Judging by the outstanding successes of Taiwan, there is strong hope yet for the mainland.

re the author's comment:
"The Cold War has gone, but the battle between democracy and autocracy is far from over. It is essential democratic leaders act with courage and moral conscience when they make decisions that have global ramifications. It is also essential the public votes with a strong moral conscience to ensure the accountability of their leaders."

Maybe Australia, with our Mandarin-speaking PM can lead the charge. don't expect too much from the USA. The cyurrent administration's policies are likely to get but minor revision with the incoming government, whether it be Republican or Democrat. Both leaderships are locked into neoconservative policies and consequences of previous events. They are unlikely to change the policies or structure of the IMF or the WTO, or the current global free trade treaties

Both Russia and China were "democratised" by force. Yeltsin's attack on the Russian Parliament building, a few years after the massacre at Tiananmin Square, can be argued as a similar enforcement measure, to assure that radical economic reforms toward "free markets" would be successful.

If you're interested, Naomi Klein's book, The Shock Doctrine, is a very comprehensive history of the disconnect between free market economics and free speech movements.

Hello Jin,

By democracy, I assume you mean liberal democracy. The West's democracy grew our of Reformation from the Church and resistence to medieval arostrocracy.

China from the Chou to Qing dynasties was democracy, in theory, to the extent that The Son of Heaven [Tien] over the Middle Kingdom held his based on fair rule. The Emperor the middle stroke of Tien over Ren represents a high position; but only according to the nature of good rule. In China, leaders were changed by peasant revolutions. In Greece bu ostracization: Yet, Greek democracy was collectivist and Western democracy, individuaist.

The problem challenging China becoming a liberal democracy is the formation of oliarchs among the Shang and the bounded quanxi. China wants to be a super-power and saw it could not achieve this in 1953. Yet, it did demostrate a bit muscle with its non-Han provinces.

China has matured a sighnificantly in context that there are two sons in he sky, The trheads of The Gordian Knot for China are ethno-centrism, collectivism* and famililism. If the underlying fabric of a civilization is closed and elevates nepotism its leaders will be the same.

The lever I see is Wealth generation, which is achieved by integration with transnationals and the West.

The Sinic civilization split into the Chinese and Japanese civilization circa. 400 CE. Japan has made the transition; in part {Kietsu]. As Veblen noted in the early nineteenth century about Japan and Germany, rapid transition from feudal economy to a technologically advanced economy begs militarism. The West needs to provide economic advantages to China, so it doe not take the path of the old Japan and the old Germany.

* Perhaps collectivism would be last to go and an intermediate step over which one establishes law,as in Ancient Rome, introducing aspects of equality of the individual in due process.

Cheers.

O.