Democracy: no single path or

time to reach the universal value

Paula León Mora Borja Santos (2019)

Words: 3250
Introduction
China has become the world's second largest economic force in less than 40
years, but economic growth has not brought with it a shift towards
democracy, as occurred in Spain, South Korea and India, among others.

This issue not only worries the West -and its growing concern that the world
follows a single political, social and economic pattern- but also generates
debates among the Chinese academic and political elite in which the idea of
IBEI a democracy with its own characteristics challenges the elements that the
Comparative Politics and West considers fundamental and rescues other participatory and progressive
changes.
Democratization
This paper presents the opinion of Li Fan, a Chinese academic who sets his
position on the relationship between modernization and democracy in his
country and which allows me to begin a deeper analysis of the differentiated
factors that this case has presented in studies on democratization and the
criticisms that have been made to the theories that generalize the Western
experience to other regions of the world.
Overview
Li Fan wrote "It's true that democracy in China is in retreat, but Don't give up
on it now" in July 2020, an Op-Ed that asks the West not to abandon its
support for the democratization of China.

The author considers that there are reasons why democratization in China
may be regressing and, there are other reasons to think the Asian giant is
using its economic power to expand ideologically and territorially. Among
2
them counts:

➢ Increased military activity into the South China Sea.

➢ The expansion of its economic and military power through the Belt
and Road Initiative.
➢ The recurrence of the application of unfair commercial practices.
➢ The thief and forced technological transfer.

Jason Lee

Despite considering that these actions demonstrate China's failure to comply

with the agreement with the West for the liberalization of its policy, he is
optimistic about the democratic future of the Asian country for two
fundamental reasons.

The first has to do with the modernization process that China has undergone
for 200 years and that at some point led the author to think that the country
was close to a democratic breakthrough. In his words:
“China’s trajectory so far has confirmed the predictions of modernization theory
that underlay the policy of engagement: as China became wealthier, its citizens
became more educated, more urbanized, and more sophisticated. They felt more
qualified to evaluate their government, took a greater interest in politics, and
demanded that government protect their personal rights and interests”.
 This shows that the author conceives modernization as a previous and fundamental
step to achieve democracy and inscribes him in a structuralist approach under the
basic postulates of modernization theory. This approach explains that democracy is
the tip of an iceberg below which is a long process of "industrialization, urbanization,
increasing levels of education, rising national income and a continued spread of
communications technologies" (Teorell, 2010, p. 17), as fundamental factors for its
occurrence.

Although Li has the previous opinion, he also believes that the expected result, that
is, democracy, has not occurred, due to a change in the Chinese politics in which the
most liberal and tolerant reforms applied by Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong were
reversed. This confirms that his foundation comes from a structuralist thought rather 3
than a strategic one, because although there are traces of the intervention of the
country's political elites, they themselves have not been able to completely stop the
process of democratization and acquisition of more emancipatory values.

Thus, contrary to the strategic perspective of authors such as Rustow, who

understand that democratization is a process basically led by the elites and in which
there are no social and economic preconditions to meet (Teorell, 2010).

So, even though the expected result has not been produced, he does consider that
modernization is facing its last stage since there is a slowdown in its economy and
the autocratic regime is in decline, the right time for political modernization to be
achieved.

The second reason for his optimism has to do with the liberal values that the Chinese
population has been acquiring since Deng Xiaoping's opening policies approximately
40 years ago, and from which the sympathy and practice of small-scale democracy
in the territory.

In this sense, in addition to personally promoting direct voting in villages,

cooperating in carrying out transparent and participatory budgets in downtowns,
and promoting and protecting rights, freedoms, and democratic values, Li has
observed how the population itself criticizes the government and promotes
freedoms, rule of law, human rights and civil society ideas, remembering what they
were learned in the opening era of China.

This is part of the same theoretical foundation of the structural perspective, but is,
in fact, supported by the values factor. This theory indicates that over time the
populations demand and defend greater public freedoms or values that go beyond
the satisfaction of their material conditions of existence, leading them directly from
authoritarianism to democracy (Welzel, 2010).

Jason Lee (2020)

Does the Chinese experience confirm
the theory of modernization?

Despite the fact that the reviewed author considers that the theory of modernization
is applicable to China and for this reason the West must continue in its commitment
to support the democratization process that is about to end, I consider that this
theory does not fit adequately with the Chinese experience because with it, many
differentiating elements are left aside, elements that, evidently, has led China down
4
dissimilar paths.

To support this hypothesis (1) I will collect what some authors say regarding the
applicability of this theory in the specific case, (2) I will state some elements that I
consider the theory does not allow to take into account because it focuses on
structural elements and (3) I will comment on some other perspectives that allow
elucidating the possibilities regarding the political trajectory in China.

Interfoto (1971)

What do other authors say?

Cao Fangjun (2009) stated that China has not only tried to put theory into
practice but has also fortified it. He first argued that the modernization
theory of the 1960s was criticized for oversimplifying the divide between
tradition and modernity by generalizing to characteristics of Western
countries. However, by the 1980s the theory had been revised and corrected
with three more postulates: (1) tradition and modernity can coexist, (2) there
is not a single track of evolution and (3) the external environment has
significance.

Cao considered that Western modernization theory can be applied to China

in three points: first, the most important step of China's modernization took
 the form of industrialization, second, an important feature is that it also
modernized through change of an economy based on agriculture to an
economy where the third sector plays a fundamental role and, third,
economic, political and social structures very similar to those of the West
have been established.

Reilly (2016), as well as emphasizing again that the theory was built especially
on the experiences of Europe and Latin America, he argued that
modernization theory is not applicable to most East Asian countries that
between 1950 and 1960 were autocracies with high economic growth (Korea,
Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore) because, of all of them, only Korea and Taiwan 5
transitioned to democracy

According to the author, China, as modernization theory predicted, by

increasing its wealth also created a society with increasing aspirational and
mobility demands that culminated in the Tiananmen student demonstrations
of 1989. The crackdown was swift and violent, in addition to restricting mass
political participation.

Therefore, the Chinese middle class tends to be more loyal to the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) and less supportive of democratic institutions and
values, which is linked to a particular institutional configuration of a unique
party system and state-dominated economy.

Wu et al (2017) also refer to the Chinese middle class as a fundamental factor

in the inadequacy of modernization theory in this case. The authors
explained that the support that the middle class gives to the authoritarian
regime is due, in part, to the fear that they have of the coercive power of the
State. But in addition, they considered that the regime has also gained
supporters with a gradual protection of the private property rights of this
population, instead of carrying out a complete democratization.

With the results of the Asian Barometer Survey (ABS), Liu et al (2022) divide
the period from 2002 to 2019 into 5 waves. The first is only the year 2002,
the second is from 2007 to 2008, the third is in 2011, the fourth is from 2015
to 2016 and the fifth is in 2019.

Reuters (1989)

They found that at an important historical moment the State used its
“interceptive” power between economic development and cultural changes.
They argued that before the middle of 2010 China was undergoing a cultural
change due to liberalization policies and reforms for decentralization and
with a growing demand for liberal democracy as predicted by modernization
theory. However, with the change of leadership in the CCP - its intervention
in education and the media - an indoctrination was completed and the
intellectual elite receded.

What makes China different?

6

Mike (2020)

The authors just commented agree that in China, in general, the

explanations provided by modernization theory were adequate until before
achieving political modernization, after this period of liberalization and
growing demand for liberal values, the authors agree that due to the
intervention of the State, the reaction of the middle class and some
historical or cultural traits prevented the path outlined by the theory from
being completed.
Despite what the authors have said, there is no explanation as to why,
being in an advanced stage of modernization, its course never returned to
the path of democratization. In this sense, I continue to wonder about the
special characteristics that would make China one of the exceptions to this
dyad between economic development and democracy.
Even before the shift in the political leadership in the country, Chinese
authors talked about the need to apply a local approach to the theory so it
would bring democracy to the territory. Zhang (2006) said that the full
implementation of democracy depended on the possibility that they could
shape it to their needs, that is, that they could give it a suitable and low-
risk form to suit their interests.
Likewise, he understood that the assistance that would be required from
Europe for a gradual change (not a revolution or a change of regime) was
one in which Europe presented its vision on democracy and human rights,
but not from a moral superiority, but from the approach of good
governance and public administration. Cooperation, then, should be
directed with a long-term vision and taking into account the changes that
the government wanted to implement.
And it is that the authoritarian vision of the Chinese State is not limited to
its government, there is a traditional authoritarian conception of authority
and hierarchy that dominates inter and intra-family relationships at the
most basic level of society (Tellexea, 2015).
This becomes a network of influence peddling (if you give favors, you 7
receive favors) that discourages, in the most fundamental sense, the
establishment of a rule of law, because formal equal opportunity
meritocracy would not apply in business configuration base or in so many
other scenarios in which democracy requires equal access to the entire
population.
Contradictorily, in the high spheres of power this vision of authority and
hierarchy promotes the idea that their rulers are indeed meritocratically
elected and that their election could not be carried out in any other way at
the risk that the population that is in the lower echelons of the hierarchy
do not know how to choose a good and competent leader.
This traditional conception of authority, hierarchy and socio-family
relationships based on influence peddling, coupled with the educational
control that the State has, have not allowed the growth of a strong social
movement in favor of democracy in China and makes it increasingly
difficult to creation of a legal system with a generalist perspective (as
opposed to particularism) and a rule of law (Tellexea, 2015).
Reforming this tradition, so suddenly, would only go against postulates
that have been part of its culture since, at least, its birth as an empire.

Bloomberg (2022)
 Perspectives on the political trajectory in
China

In this scenario of Western sorrow, not a few scholars have wanted to start
a path of theoretical construction of that democratization and democracy
with Chinese characteristics, based particularly on Confucianism, a
religious and political doctrine rooted in the Asian giant.
For example, Lee (2013) found that in a study carried out in 2002 it was 8
concluded from surveys that the Chinese population wanted the
establishment of a democracy but that their notion of democracy was
based on the Confucian idea of minben the people are the primary sources
of state power.
By 2013, the author carried out another number of surveys in which he
found that a group of local scholars mostly perceived democracy as a
“procedural concept—as a process or a means to protect the will and rights
of the people”(Lee, 2013, p. 341), this means that they conceive it beyond
the minben or socioeconomic equity, but with the conviction that it is either
a universal value or a historical trend.
It is also important to note that although 20 of the 28 scholars surveyed
said that democracy is better than any other political system, they were
also emphatic that the abolition of a one-party system and the introduction
of a multi-party one would be a distant option.
About Confucianism and democracy, it has also been said that there is no
fundamental contradiction of values between them, so Confucianism
cannot be seen as an excuse to reject democracy in modern China
(Keqiang, 2006). It is recognized that the Confucian foundations of the
people will, the doctrine of mean (moral merit: personal tolerance towards
different ideas and opinions; in terms of a way of thinking, it means the
opposite of arbitrary and monomaniacal) and independent personality
with the characters of responsibility, obligation and commitment, could
allow a grassroot development of democracy in the Chinese popular
tradition.
Other authors such as Jiwei Ci have rejected that the cosmological
Kennedy (2017) foundation of Confucianism provides a theoretical or ideological
foundation for China's modern politics, considering that the collapse of the
last imperial dynasty (Qing Qing) meant the end of this cosmological or
theological part of Confucianism.
However, Chan (2022) considers that traditional Confucianism has a
political and ethnic thought that can give meaning to democracy and
legitimacy, because if the basis for denying this possibility is to say that
not much of the Chinese population preaches this cosmological part
anymore, would be equivalent to saying that since democracy is not
preached to the same extent, it could not have any place in the Asian giant.
Other grassroots electoral practices such as the election of leaders on a
small scale and the creation and maintenance of the VCE (village
committee elections) for more than 20 years, can shed light on the
establishment of new thoughts and practices similar to Western liberal
democracies. Lu (2012) considers that in China there is a grassroots
democracy which is particularly developed in those villages where there is
competition between the predominant social groups (clans).
9

Conclusion
The literature agrees that the explanations given by modernization theory
were adequate even before achieving political modernization in China.
After this period of liberalization and growing demand for liberal values,
the authors agree that the intervention of the State, the reaction of the
middle class and some historical or cultural traits prevented the path
outlined by the theory from being completed.
Another important element is the conception that cultural and historical
differences such as the perception of authority and hierarchy, a particular
legal system based on the dynamics of intra and inter-family favors and
the resistance to the imposition of values and forms of to make politics
and society clearly Western, have also reinforced the mandate of the CCP
and of authoritarianism as opposed to democracy as a foreign conception.

La Izquierda Diario (2020)

However, intellectual and popular visions of the relevance of democracy

as a historical trend or universal value that should be developed locally
and slowly, without disrupting the one-party system or questioning the
legitimacy of the CCP, which is seen more as a permanent institution than
as a political contender to defeat or maintain.
there are many elements of democracy that survive in the Chinese social
base and that could generate changes in the political and social system in
the very long term, which does not fit well with its accelerated economic
modernization does not always lead to the same result, but also that
democracy does not have to start from the same point either.
In this sense, the commitment of the West (of which Li Fan talk) must not
be maintained only if the result is going to be the democratization of China
or if it becomes the commercial support of the United States and the 10
current economic system, but must continue from a respectful point of
view of the different path that China has undergone, provided that in this
path it respects the basic assumptions of the current international system.
In any case, in order to continue hand in hand in this process, I consider
convenient to carry out more in-depth studies on the cultural divergences
that underlie the current political system in China, without forgetting, for
example, what are the deep economic interests of its current leaders, as
well as their thoughts, proposals and actions on democracy.
In addition, it seems important to me that in order to fully understand the
Chinese experience, the timing of the social, cultural and political
processes typical of its historical role can be studied, since in the West we
are used to being able to review events just a couple of decades after
them, but this conception of time and history can play against when it
comes to understanding a culture whose permanence can be counted
beyond centuries and millennia.

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