A New Year for China: a new approach for the West

Furthermore, in 1995 a joint American-Chinese survey revealed that “national prosperity” was the biggest priority for 56 per cent of the population compared to “political democracy” which rated only 5 per cent.

Many young Westerners hoped that the 2008 Beijing Olympics would provide the impetus towards democracy by opening China to the world and laying the seeds for democracy. In comparison, Chinese youth saw it as an opportunity to signal to the world the effectiveness of its cocktail of economic development and authoritarian rule. The Games ultimately achieved neither. Internationally, the torch relay protests over Tibet represented the greatest setback for Chinese “soft power” since Tiananmen Square. Domestically they eroded, rather than fuelled, any democratic sentiment.

Their desire to maintain the status quo is not a product of historical ignorance born through stringent censorship measures as it is commonly hypothesised. For many, the greatest fear of democracy is empowering the peasant class to play a decisive hand in deciding who rules China and the shifts in the balance of power and economics that would usher. In this way, the rural populace is largely held in disdain and not believed to be ready to participate in elections because of demagogues and vote-buying.

China’s youth are not entirely hostile to the concept of democracy though, they just believe they should be able to predominate in a democratised polity. For the moment at least, “democracy with socialist characteristics” is serving them and the economy well.

Recognising the pragmatism of China’s desire for democracy continues to present a challenge to Western policymakers. The naïve assumption that economic expansion directly fuels democratic sentiment and that democracy itself is inevitable remains at the centre of most Western countries’ approaches to China.

While China remains essentially an unapologetic authoritarian regime these policymakers should realise that engagement with China does not in itself condone the regime’s human rights record or political control.

With China’s economically powerful youth set to swell to more than 500 million by 2015, viewing China as an inevitable convert to the religion of democracy is blind and deterministic.

The West needs a new approach to China that heightens engagement with a key economic powerhouse but tempers grandiose expectations of democracy anytime soon. China’s rising power will be constrained by its own shortfalls in freedom, irrespective of external influence.

Perhaps this could be our collective resolution for the New Year?