Tom Friedman typically irritates me, especially when he talks about his theory of oil politics (Freedom House just downgraded Bahrain to Not Free, so good prediction there; I noticed you don’t talk much about the country these days, either). Today, however, he reminded me about why I still read him.

This was not a good week for China. On the world stage, it looked weak in two very different areas.

First, Google announced it will only stay in China if the government lifts its censorship of the internet for Google’s users. Nicholas Kristof cheers Google’s decision:

By announcing that it no longer plans to censor search results in China, even if that means it must withdraw from the country, Google is showing spine – a kind that few other companies or governments have shown toward Beijing…

Google announced its decision after a sophisticated Chinese attempt to penetrate the Gmail addresses of dissidents….

China is redrawing the balance between openness and economic efficiency. The architect of China’s astonishingly successful economic reforms, Deng Xiaoping, clenched his teeth and accepted photocopiers, fax machines, cellphones, computers and lawyers because they were part of modernization.

Yet in the last few years, President Hu Jintao has cracked down on Internet freedoms and independent lawyers and journalists. President Hu is intellectually brilliant but seems to have no vision for China 20 years from now…

Eventually, I think, a combination of technology, education and information will end the present stasis in China. In a conflict between the Communist Party and Google, the party will win in the short run. But in the long run, I’d put my money on Google.

Second, following Haiti’s earthquake, no one looked to China to provide much in the way of aid and reconstruction, and the Chinese response has been rather paltry: 50 rescue workers and a commitment of $2 million for aid and reconstruction.  By contrast, the US has already offered at least $100 million and 5,000 troops. Now I realize that geography and history play a role here: the US is much closer to Haiti and we have much deeper ties to the nation. Nevertheless, articles and books about the rise of China and the decline of the US abound today. It seems to me that if China wants to establish itself as a major power, it is going to have to do a lot better than a 1:50 ratio of aid and a 1:100 ratio in personnel with the US when it comes to global humanitarian crises.

Moral authority matters. It’s clear the US has this and China does not. Two questions tend to dominate the news on Haiti: how bad is it and what is the US doing about it. The US may do a lot of bad and stupid things in the world. Nevertheless, in times of global crisis, people turn to the US to lead the rescue. Obama’s reaction has been swift and forceful. China may have economic power, but it is woefully short of global leadership.

In a recent post, I wrote that China’s lack of involvement in global governance is because the government’s main concern domestic economic growth. China’s foreign policy is simply its execution of this policy outside its borders, I argued. I think I get partial-credit for a correct prediction, although it was not on my mind when I wrote the post. The consensus is that the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit to come up with any serious policy to deal with climate change was in large measure due to Obama’s poor negotiating skills. Mark Lynas writing in the (UK) Guardian says that this is not true:

Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.

And why was the Chinese government so intent on wrecking the negotiations?  According to Lynas:

China’s growth, and growing global political and economic dominance, is based largely on cheap coal…Its coal-based economy doubles every decade, and its power increases commensurately. Its leadership will not alter this magic formula unless they absolutely have to.

So I get partial credit, but in a way that bolsters my argument. True, China did play a major role in these negotiations, contrary to what I wrote in the post. But the role it played was to make global cooperation more difficult because the Chinese government understands that combating climate change is bad domestic politics. This is not good news.

Edward Wong has a good article in today’s New York Times about how the use of Chinese labor to build and run Chinese foreign investments is generating a lot of anger in those countries.  Because China is investing in a lot of poor countries where jobs are hard to find, the anger is understandable. I think this gets to the central idea of why China’s model of capitalism is not a good one to export.  While many have praised China for its no-strings-attached model of foreign aid, this misses the danger the model presents. Minxin Pei recently pointed out that despite China investing and exporting all over the world, China plays a very small role in international institutions. Pei argues the reason for this is because the Chinese government is more concerned about domestic politics, specifically maintaining economic growth, than solving international problems.

I think this gets to the central problem of the Chinese model of development. China is perfectly happy to provide no-strings-attached-aid to get natural resources, for example. The reason for this is not because the Chinese are benevolent. Rather, its because access to the resources is important for China’s domestic policy. Exporting labor has the same effect: it creates jobs for Chinese workers. China’s model is not new; in fact its very old and it did not end well. It’s essentially economic colonialism. In the 19th century, all the Great Powers in Europe basically had China’s policy today and the result was World War I. The international institutions we have today – imperfect as they are – are based on the premise that coordination of foreign policy is necessary to avoid the problems that uncoordinated self-interested policy tends to create. If all countries followed China’s policies today, global war would be far more likely than global peace and prosperity.

My posts on this blog tend to address three themes. One, topical stories that don’t always make the front page, such as my recent posts on Honduras and Switzerland. Two, Afghanistan because of its importance to US foreign policy and because better governance is integral to ending the war.  Three, criticizing the Obama administration for its apparent preference for stability over democratization.  Sometimes a post from the third category has been a bit of a rant, so I want to explain myself. Read the rest of this entry…

The “China model” has garnered attention as an alternative for liberal development, but comparisons are largely drawn on the experiences of economic liberalization taking place under one-party dictatorships in Southeast Asia. Outside these regional comparisons, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) seemed to have little applicability to political organization in the rest of the world. Now, according to this New York Times piece, Putin’s United Russia party believes the CCP deserving of study. The article describes a special meeting held earlier this month that featured senior Communist Party officials describing their ruling methodology and quotes from various United Russia leaders on the value and success of the CCP template.

China itself has a similar history of sending its officials abroad to learn techniques of governance they believed suitable for China’s future. Since the 1980s the CCP has demonstrated interest in the People’s Action Party (PAP) in Singapore. David Shambaugh’s book, China’s Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation, reveals that the CCP values the PAP model for “guided democracy” in which the PAP sustains itself through successful policies and co-optation of the opposition”.

Each of these cases is evidence of oft assumed authoritarian cooperation, but what the implications of this learning between authoritarians are for democracy advocates and practitioners is unclear. The ability of democracy assistance or democracy/reform advocates to exert any kind of pressure on authoritarian regimes is minimal. However, a regime’s selection and analysis of case studies is perhaps indicative of direction. In China, corruption could potentially undermine the ability of the CCP to claim itself an efficient manager and capable steward of economic expansion. Singapore is the logical choice for the CCP to study given its economic success and the PAP’s ability to retain control of the state during and after economic modernization. Shambaugh believes the interest of the CCP in semi-authoritarian regimes is one example of the CCP undergoing renovation in order to retain power. If similar direction can be assumed from United Russia’s choice of China as a model then the implications are less positive. That direction might best be summed up by Sergei Mitrokhin, leader of the liberal pro-Western Yabloko party, who is quoted in the NY Times article as saying “the China meeting demonstrated that United Russia wants to establish a single-party dictatorship in Russia, for all time”.

Following the attack by the military on demonstrators who had gathered to protest in a soccer stadium in the capital, Guinea’s coup leaders face increasing international pressure. The AU, EU, the regional organization Ecowas, and the UN united to call for targeted sanctions against the military.  It is unclear what impact sanctions can have on the conflict. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, Guinea’s economy is dominated primarily by subsistence farming and mining. Bauxite and aluminum constitute around 60% of exports annually and a further 25-40% come from gold and diamonds. This suggests few avenues for effective sanctions and even fewer opportunities for targeted sanctions that punish only the military.

Further undermining the ability of sanctions to produce desired outcomes are $7bn from Beijing. Chinese interest in Guinea is surprising. Earlier in the year the New York Times reported that Chinese investors were becoming weary of pumping resources into the more politically unstable countries in Africa. This suggests that the Chinese government is convinced  the military can provide enough stability to protect its sizable investment, which greatly exceeds Guinea’s annual GDP of $4.6bn

The growth of Chinese aid to Africa is well-documented elsewhere, but it remains unclear what the consequences of Chinese aid will be. The initial popularity of Chinese investment is dwindling in many parts of Africa. Headaches caused by anti-Chinese sentiment in these countries combined with international pressure for Beijing to act responsibly in its role as a global power have forced Beijing to confront the limits of “no-strings attached”.

For example, fecklessness by the government in Burma and strong international support have dampened China’s unconditional support for the military regime in Naypyidaw. The ability of China to influence its more unsavory allies should not be overstated, but China has shown an interest in moderating these regimes both for its own investors and its credibility as a rising power. It remains to be seen if China can exert similar influence in Africa or if it will be interested in doing so. However, in Guinea the international community has little leverage to force compliance. If China can develop that leverage on Camara and his cronies in Conakry, then the strategy of international outrage combined with ineffective sanctions should be reconsidered as the preferred response to human rights crises.