These are uncertain times for despots across the Pacific. Thanks to an ironic quirk of history, the last bastion of communism is in East Asia, where the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea used just
These are uncertain times for despots across the Pacific. Thanks to an ironic quirk of history, the last bastion of communism is in East Asia, where the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea used just about opposite strategies to pursue the same goal: longevity. Not until now have they both started to fail.
In China, where political elites, regardless of ideology, have ruled for thousands of years, Communist Party leaders realized that phasing in a corporate economy would allow them to peacefully grow their country.
That was an important goal. In the 19th century, Europe asserted economic dominance over China. In the 20th century, Japan nearly crushed China politically and militarily. Only a robust, dynamic China could hope to control its own destiny.
What China’s clever elite didn’t count on was the stubbornness of collective memory in the city-state of Hong Kong. After kicking out the British on schedule and without incident in 1997, Beijing wisely allowed Hong Kong to preserve much of its democratic habits of government. But the party elite expected to fully, and inevitably, absorb Hong Kong into the Chinese political system.
Well, Hong Kong has other ideas. Taking to the streets in weeks-long protest of an anti-democratic administrative move, some residents have threatened to create a problem of unrest too big for Beijing to manage without crushing force. As the world learned from Tianenmen Square in 1989, China’s leadership will resort to tanks if necessary, but only if necessary.
So if Hong Kong residents keep cool, the most-likely scenario is a small but significant derailment of the Communist Party’s plans. To date, China has been able to open up its economy to corporate globalization without liberalizing its politics. Losing Hong Kong to democracy would make it all the harder to absorb Taiwan, an even bigger goal of the party elite. And giving up on Hong Kong and Taiwan means thinking of a new inevitability — the first stirrings of political liberty in China itself.
That may seem outlandish in the short term, but events can unfold quickly when regimes become sclerotic, as the collapse of the Soviet Union revealed. In that extinct country, a failed military coup was the triggering event for the death of communism as a governing force.
Likewise, today in North Korea, a possible military coup is poised to transform the country. Though reports vary, the young, unpopular and ineffective dictator Kim Jong Un may have been deposed by the military he has tried so hard to purge of opponents. Any North Korean officer taking charge will have a stark choice: run his people into the ground, or reverse his country’s pariah status and its dependence on China. Making the second choice means walking away from despotism, however gradually. It took South Korea decades to embrace democracy — but look at it now.
Even slow political change in Asia can be profound, but it all starts with a single step.
— From the Orange County Register
