China's Next Revolution

Posted July 3, 2008

The Chinese Communist leaders would like the rest of the world to believe that China is a unique historical and economic case. Are we to understand China based on some universal rules of human evolution? Or should we share a Sinocentric interpretation of everything that happens in this supposedly different civilization? It seems to me that China is, of course, different, as any nation is, but she does follow a well-known cycle which already took place in the West. Thus, Alexis de Tocqueville could be more relevant today to understand where China stands than Confucius.

In "The Ancien Régime and the Revolution" (1856), the book that followed “Democracy in America," Tocqueville explained how the French became more hostile to their monarchy as their prosperity and freedom increased. He rightly described this paradox as a cycle of rising expectations. When the French were poor, oppressed and hopeless, they would remain quiet, except for some local rebellions here and there, and they would support the king.

Toward the late 18th century, increased prosperity and a more tolerant regime made the French restless; when the people start tasting freedom, they do not tolerate any more restrictions.

This could very well be the case in China today.

As we know, the Communist Party argues that its political monopoly and enlightened despotism is the reason for China’s relative new wealth. It is also true that the Chinese are more free today than they were during the Mao Zedong regime: thousands of dissidents are in jail, but this cannot be compared with the past laogai. It is now tolerated to express individual opinions in China, even to criticize the Party, as long you do not create an anti-Party organization.

Non-Chinese observers familiar with China often conclude that the Chinese never had it better; therefore, stability and Communist monopoly should prevail. If this is the case, how do we explain the collective rebellions which took place in Tibet, in Sichuan after the earthquake, in Guizhou after the murder of a young girl?

Tocqueville helps us to better understand the link between these separated events: the Chinese, because they never had it better, are more and more frustrated. They will not be grateful to the Party; they better get rid of the Party. But nobody knows how to replace the Party?

This as well resembles the French situation on the eve of the revolution. Initially, the French philosophers and new political leaders believed that the monarchy could be improved: a Constitution was adopted, the rule of law was proclaimed. But the monarchy crumbled because despotism cannot that easily be improved.

The same goes with the Communist Party in China: very probably, it cannot evolve rapidly enough to satisfy rising expectations. Authoritarian regimes do not soften: they resist or they collapse. The French Revolution which followed the inevitable collapse of the Ancient Regime was not perceived by Tocqueville as an historical necessity, but as a regrettable (and bloody) accident. The true destiny of nations, according to Tocqueville, was democracy; democracy in his mind, was not only a political regime but an egalitarian civilization as well.

This theory today will sound too deterministic, Fukuyama-like; however Tocqueville proved to be right. Democracy which existed nowhere but in the United States in the time of Tocqueville is—to various degrees—everywhere but in pariah states like North Korea; China, of course, is the major exception.

True, there are some local elections in villages where foreign observers—in a Potemkin-like atmosphere—are invited to attend. But these local elections take place only in remote rural villages as if not to contaminate towns and cities. Moreover, only the Communist Party can sponsor candidates; campaigning is forbidden. The central government argues that the Chinese must “learn” how to vote, an education process which will take a very long time.

Also, at the top, elections do occur within the Party all right, but between Communists only. This puppet theater is less the morning of democracy than a propaganda tool in the villages and a method to renew the cadres at the top or to get rid of your political enemies, bloodlessly. This is progress compared to the former period but far from a real democracy.

Will China escape the law of rising expectations and the democratic destiny? The seminal difference between China and others, from Ancien Régime France to contemporary South Korea, is not rooted in the Chinese culture, but in the Communist system: there is no bourgeoisie in China. A real bourgeoisie is economically independent from the political power; in China, most of the middle class belongs to the Party or depends on it. Private property is nearly nonexistent and most of the private entrepreneurs depend on Party connections and guanxi. This pseudo middle class has a vested interest in the Party monopoly and no longing for democracy. This is a new kind of society that Tocqueville could not envision.

Should then Marx be called upon? Tocqueville believed in the primacy of ideas. Marx believed in the determining power of property and economy. Marx, better than Tocqueville, could describe a new kind of class struggle between the Party supporters, the mostly urban, relatively well-to-do Chinese middle class, and the rural poor. In both cases, rising expectation or class warfare, the outcome for China is unpredictable; but stability, or harmonious evolution, do not look likely.

Mr. Guy Sorman, a contributing editor at City Journal, is the author of 20 books on French politics and international affairs as well as “Empire of Lies: The Truth About China in the Twenty-First Century” (Encounter Books, 2008).