{Editor’s Note: Qiushi published an article praising China for having a system that is superior to that of the West. It argued that the West has entered into a chaotic state. Its economic and social models face severe challenges. However, at the same time, China has achieved great peace and order, thanks to its superior system.
The following are excerpts from the article.} {1}
In recent years, the Western countries have faced frequent chaos. The situation got even worse in 2016 when Trump, a political outsider, was elected President of the United States. Many of his policies have created huge controversies, have caused fierce fighting among the political parties, and have further deepened the divisions in society.
The large number of refugees from the Middle East pouring into Europe has caused political turmoil in almost every European country. The Brexit Referendum brought continued uncertainty to the world’s economy. With the rapid spread of anti-globalization and populism, the right-wing forces continue to grow in many countries. Terrorist attacks have never been this rampant in the Western countries. Debt, financial crises, and welfare calamities have caused people’s living standards to stop improving or even to decline.
In summary, the chaos in the West has become a major reason for the insecurity and instability in the world. The Western model faces serious challenges.
China’s political order is in sharp contrast to the West. In the past few decades, China has risen rapidly in the world in a way that the West thought was unbelievable. It has shocked the West and the world.
The chaos in the West and the order and the achievements in China all took place with growing globalization as the background. Why, when the West fell into disorder or even great chaos, was China able to achieve great order?
I. It was because of the difference between China’s and the West’s understandings of and strategies for globalization.
The nature of globalization that the U.S. and the European countries have spent endless efforts promoting is the globalization of neoliberalism. It was meant to serve international monopolistic capitalism. The main characteristics of neoliberalism are liberalization, privatization, and marketization. It promotes loosening economic control and utilizing capital to maximize profit. In any business fields, it even adopts the rule, “the strong wins over the weak.” Meanwhile, in order to maximize the interests of capital, these countries also inserted the so called demand of “political democratization” into their neoliberalism.
Economic globalization under neoliberalism has enabled many Western countries to achieve extraordinary wealth. However while the Western countries gained the growth of capitalism overseas, they also had to face domestic issues such as a loss of manufacturing jobs, deindustrialization, as well as an alarming rise in the rate of unemployment. These countries have not established a real and fair (wealth) distribution system. Therefore, only a few elite classes have been able to monopolize the gains from globalization, while the general public has had to bear the burden of globalization. The end result is a rapid growth in poverty, a widening wealth disparity, and a wide spread of social divisions and contention.
The neoliberalism policy that the West promotes worldwide has also enabled the capital from the West to control the economic lifeline of the developing countries. Wall Street financial giants rob the people of their wealth. For those countries that have accepted the “democracy” that the West has exported, they have either become dependent of the West, are in a deteriorating political state, or are trapped in internal chaos or even war.
China has been actively and smoothly adapting to globalization. It has clearly defined globalization as economic globalization not political globalization or “Westernization.” Therefore not only will China not give up socialism; but it will also utilize the superior nature of the socialist system to overcome the shortcomings and deficiencies of globalization and of neoliberalism and will eventually surpass capitalism.
II. It was because of the different political systems between China and the West
As for the political system, the political parties in the West are known to represent the interests of certain groups of people. Different parties represent the interests of different groups. Therefore the country’s policy is often shifting and caught in the fights that the political parties and various special interest groups have with each other. These shifts can easily cause a country to miss its goal, but the Chinese Communist Party is a party that represents the interest of all of the groups.
From the perspective of the economic system, in order to protect its capital interests, neoliberalism advocates a free market and is strongly against any form of governmental control or intervention. This type of free globalization of capitalism and financialization has weakened the stability that the government’s macroeconomic policy can bring. It could drive a country into a financial, debt, and economic crisis and stop the growth of its people’s income. However the socialist market economy that China is developing is a new model that enables the development of both the public and the private sectors. This type of system surpasses neoliberalism’s economic model.
From the social governance perspective, neoliberalism emphasizes personal rights and lean government. It believes that the role of a country is limited to protecting people’s personal rights and freedoms. If the economy is doing well and the interests of vast groups are relatively balanced, the country will run smoothly. If the economy is declining, welfare is hard to sustain, wealth disparity is widening, and conflicts among various races, interest groups, and social classes are deepening, a Western democratic government will have a hard time dealing with various types of crises. In contrast, through the exploration and practice China has taken, it has reached unprecedented social stability. It has formed a complete social system that fits the unique situation in China. The most unique aspect is the positive exchange between the country and the society. It has formed a social governance model where the political party leads, society assists, and the people participate.
III. It was because of the difference between China and the West of three forces in the political system
From a deeper perspective, behind the West’s chaos and China’s order and achievements, there is a huge difference in the three types of powers used in managing a country: the political, social, and economic powers.
In many Western countries, the political, social, and economic powers are seriously unbalanced with the economic powers weighing significantly heavier than the others. It means that the country’s political power lacks a much needed independence and neutrality and the economic power infiltrates its social power. It is just like the media that has the power of the “fourth estate.” Because the monopolized economic party controls them, they can only move in the direction that group tells them. They are truly unable to represent the will and wishes of the majority of the people. The direct result is that the West’s democracy has changed to a type of democracy that only serves the monopolistic economic powers and where the interests of the people have to give in to the interests of the economic power. It has resulted in a sharp increase in wealth disparity and the majority of the people are unable to receive the actual benefits of globalization.
China’s political power, on the other hand, has maintained its independence from the influence of social and economic powers. While it maintains the balance between social and economic powers, it is also able to sustain its own style and the ability to lead the social and economic powers. This is the key reason why China has been able to overcome the disadvantages of globalization and to rise successfully.
Endnote:
{1} Qiushi, “The Systematic Reasons for the West’s Chaos and China’s Great Order,” August 2, 2017.
http://www.qstheory.cn/dukan/qs/2017-08/02/c_1121422337.htm.