Too early to write off democracy in China
By Michael Skapinker
Published: January 26 2010 02:00 | Last updated: January 26 2010 02:00
At the South African university I attended during the apartheid years, several of my fellow students disappeared during the night. Taken away by the police, they were held in solitary confinement, without access to lawyers, family or reading matter, for weeks and sometimes for months. A few were tortured.
Yet, being white, we were mostly a lucky bunch. We enjoyed an excellent standard of living and a fine education. There was anxiety about who at the university might be police informers, but for us, the security apparatus was never as all-enveloping as it was either for black South Africans or for those living in communist dictatorships.
But the experience left me with an enduring commitment to democratic government and the rule of law, and a horror of unaccountable authority.
Both apartheid and Soviet communism have, happily, collapsed and South Africa has, equally happily, opted for parliamentary constitutionalism over the communism of many of apartheid's opponents.
More than 50 years ago Richard Nixon, then US vice-president, and Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, argued in a mocked-up American kitchen in Moscow about whose system was superior. By the time the Soviet empire imploded in the late 1980s, the answer was obvious.
Democratic countries were better. Not only were their people freer; they were more prosperous.
How could they be otherwise? Successful economies depended on the free exchange of ideas. Innovation came from the clash of competing products and services, with consumers free to choose the best.
A successful economy was also impossible without an independent legal system, which ensured that people's property, both physical and intellectual, could not be stolen by criminals or government cronies.
Yet democracy was not easy. Russia may no longer be communist but it is hardly a model democracy either. Iraq and Afghanistan are proof that democracy cannot be imposed from outside.
Nor does it always produce the expected results. As a letter writer pointed out in the Financial Times on Friday, democracy is viewed as dysfunctional in the Philippines and has failed to produce stability in Thailand.
Run your eye down the list of wealthiest countries as measured by gross domestic product per capita. Alongside democracies such as the US, Switzerland, Austria and Canada are less-than-democratic Qatar and Brunei, as well as semi-democracies like Hong Kong and Singapore.
Does this invalidate the economic case for democracy? Not entirely. Qatar and Brunei would not be there without oil and gas. Hong Kong and Singapore inherited their legal institutions from Britain. They are rare examples of the rule of law co-existing with less than vigorous political systems. Their model is even harder to emulate than full-blown democracy.
Look at it another way. The countries that achieve scores of more than 90 per cent on both the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators "voice and accountability" and its "rule of law" ratings are all prosperous (although one, Iceland, is admittedly in serious trouble). Most of those scoring below 20 per cent on both are deeply impoverished.
What of countries on the way to becoming prosperous? Of the Bric countries, two - India and Brazil - are democracies, albeit imperfect ones. During a visit to Brazil last year I met many people who pointed to the country's democracy as a key to its progress. As for Russia, it is heavily dependent on oil and gas exports and some have said it does not really belong in the Bric group.
It is China, now the world's third largest economy and tipped to become the largest by 2041, that is the democrat's biggest challenge. Unlike the Soviet Union, it appears to have found a way to lift millions out of poverty while still locking up its dissidents. Many have pointed to China's clash with Google over censorship as evidence that the country will not become more democratic as it prospers.
Perhaps, but this story has a long way to run. China may, within the next few decades, become the world's biggest economy, but it will take far longer for it to have the world's richest people. Measured by per-capita gross domestic product, International Monetary Fund estimates put China behind Armenia in 2008.
It was the Chinese leader Zhou Enlai who, asked for his assessment of the French revolution, is reputed to have said that it was too early to tell. Whether he actually said it or not, it is certainly too early to tell what the consequences of China's economic revolution will be.
Perhaps the Chinese people will be content, one day, to be rich and unfree. But the hunger for liberty is strong, and it is not confined to any time or place.
michael.skapinker@ft.com
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中国经济与民主
在种族隔离时代的南非，在我就读的那所大学，我的几位同学在晚上失踪了。他们被警方带走，关押在单人牢房里长达数周（有时甚至是数月），不能接受律 师和家人探访，也没有任何读物。一些人还遭受了酷刑。
但作为白人，我们总的来说仍属幸运一族。我们生活水平很高，可以接受良好的教育。对于学校里哪些人可能是警方的线人，我们的确感到不安，但对于我 们，安全机构从未像对南非黑人或生活在共产主义独裁统治下的人那样显得无处不在。
不过，这段经历还是促使我在后来一直笃信民主政府与法治，痛恨不负责任的政权。
令人高兴的是，种族隔离和苏联共产主义都已垮台；同样令人高兴的是，南非选择了议会立宪制，而非许多反种族隔离国家所奉行的共产主义制度。
50多年前，在莫斯科的一间美国厨房样板间中，时任美国副总统理查德•尼克松(Richard Nixon)与苏联领导人尼基塔•赫鲁晓夫(Nikita Khrushchev)曾就谁的制度更优越进行了一番争论。到上世纪80年代末苏维埃帝国崩塌之时，答案已一目了然。
民主国家更优越。不仅它们的人民更自由，它们的经济也更富足。
它们怎么可能不富足呢？成功的经济依赖于思想的自由交流。创新来自于竞争性产品和服务的斗艳争妍、以及消费者对最佳产品和服务的自由选择。
成功的经济还离不开独立的法律体系，它可确保人民的实物与智力财产不被犯罪分子或与政府关系密切者所窃取。
然而，走民主道路并不容易。俄罗斯也许已不再是共产主义国家，但它也绝非民主楷模。伊拉克和阿富汗的事实证明，民主制度不能从外部强加。
同样，民主制度也不是总能带来预期的效果。正如一位来函者上周五在英国《金融时报》中指出的，民主制度在菲律宾被视为功能失常，在泰国也未能带来稳 定。
浏览一下按人均国内生产总值(GDP)衡量的最富国家榜单：与美国、瑞士、奥地利和加拿大等民主国家同列榜单的，是不那么民主的卡塔尔和文莱，以及 新加坡和香港等半民主国家和地区。
这是否证明，实行民主制度的经济论据是无效的？不完全是。没有石油和天然气，卡塔尔和文莱就不会列入榜单。香港和新加坡继承了英国的法律制度，它们 是法治与缺乏活力的政治制度共存的罕见个例。效仿它们的模式，要比效仿成熟的民主制度更加困难。
我们换个视角。世界银行(World Bank)的《全球治理指标》(Worldwide Governance Indicators)中包括“言论自由与政府责任”和“法治”两项指标，这两项指标得分均高于90%的国家都很繁荣（尽管不可否认，其中之一的冰岛已陷 入严重困境）。两项得分均低于20%的国家则大多极度贫穷。
那些正在走向繁荣的国家又如何呢？在“金砖四国”中，印度和巴西两国是民主国家——尽管是不完美的民主国家。去年访问巴西期间，我遇到的许多人都认 为，民主制度是巴西取得进步的关键。至于俄罗斯，该国严重依赖油气出口，一些人曾表示，俄罗斯并不真正属于“金砖四国”。
中国才是民主主义者的最大挑战。中国现在是全球第三大经济体，而且有人预测，到2041年，中国将成为全球最大的经济体。与苏联不同，中国似乎已找 到一条道路，能够在继续关押持不同政见者的同时，让数百万人摆脱贫困。许多人指出，中国与谷歌(Google)围绕审查制度发生的冲突，就是中国在走向繁 荣之时不会变得更加民主的证据。
也许吧。但这个故事远远没有结束。或许再过几十年，中国就会成为全球最大的经济体，但要让中国人成为全球最富有的人民，还需要长得多的时间。国际货 币基金组织(IMF)的估计数字显示，按人均GDP衡量，中国2008年的排名在亚美尼亚之后。
据称，在被问及对法国大革命的评价时，中国前领导人周恩来曾说过：言之尚早。不管他是否真的说过这句话，但对于中国经济改革的结果，现在肯定是言之 尚早。
也许有朝一日，中国人民会满足于富有而不自由的生活。但人类对自由的渴望是如此强烈，它不会受到时间或地点的局限。
译者/何黎
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