As the United States has been bleeding popularity and influence around the world, China has been gaining both. That’s largely because it has been coming into its own as the first full-blown alternative since the end of the Cold War to Washington’s model of free market and democracy. As the US model has become tarnished, China has gained new lustre.
For authoritarian leaders around the world seeking to maintain their grip on power, China increasingly serves as a blueprint. Beijing has shown dictators that they don’t have to choose between power and profit; they can have both. Today’s China demonstrates that a regime can suppress organised opposition and need not establish its legitimacy through elections. It shows that a ruling party can maintain considerable control over information and the internet without slowing economic growth. And it indicates that a nation’s elite can be bought off with comfortable apartments, the chance to make money, and advances in personal, non-political freedoms (clothes, entertainment, sex, travel abroad).

Chinese model
The China model has emerged from the confluence of two independent developments over the past decade. First has been the failure of US foreign policy, symbolised by the war in Iraq. The US foreign policy has been dominated by a school of thought that emphasises military power and has tied the spread of democracy to the use of force. This has not only failed but also undermined support for democracy.
The second key development has been the Communist Party’s staying power and economic success. Just after the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square, Western pundits predicted the Chinese government had one foot on a banana peel: Any day it would fall or be forced to embrace far-reaching political reform to survive. Instead, China’s economy expanded by nine times, and the party remains firmly in control.
Westerners next seized on the internet as the inevitable liberator of the Chinese. “Information will knock down the bamboo curtain!” went the refrain. Instead, Chinese cops in the 500 cities that have established internet police bureaus are stamping out dissent by monitoring people using politically sensitive websites.
China’s stability has belied the forecasts of Western leaders that growing prosperity in China would significantly alter its one-party political system. Over the past decade, presidents, prime ministers and others have frequently offered a soothing scenario about how China will inexorably move toward freedom and democracy.

Free-market
In economic terms, China doesn’t fit into the standard model of a free-market system, either. In fact, China’s fast-growing economic system is quite different from the American model — a fact not lost on other countries. Yes, China has private firms and stock markets. But only a small portion of the stock of any given company is traded on the stock market; the majority is held by state-owned enterprises. Communist Party officials frequently retain a majority of the seats on boards of directors.
China is unique because of its sheer size and the allure of its massive markets, but repressive regimes are nevertheless increasingly looking to Beijing. In return, China has in recent years helped prop up Zimbabwe, Sudan, Uzbekistan, Cuba and North Korea.
How can US leaders turn things around? The most important change is conceptual. Americans must get beyond seeing every policy dispute involving China as a choice between “engagement” and “isolation”. Those loaded words set up a false selection and have little meaning anymore.
Any serious policy must be based on China as it is, not on the US’ mistaken assumption that prosperity and liberty inevitably go hand in hand. Trade and investment should be evaluated for their economic costs and benefits to the United States, not for their political impact on China.
Above all, America should approach China through the lens of her national interest. That includes not just security and prosperity but her interest in a world with open political systems and the freedom to dissent.
(LATimes)