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Is China Afraid of Its Own People?
China's newly empowered masses won't take 'no' for an answer, and Beijing is right to be scared. Why? Why does China fear its own people so much?
Apart from the party leadership's well-known tradition of undemocratic governance, the main reason behind "black-box diplomacy" is to avoid taking responsibility for failing to stand up to foreign powers such as the United States or Japan.
It is out of fear of a nationalist backlash that China's negotiations with the United States and other countries regarding its accession to the World Trade Organization for instance, were wrapped in secrecy.
Beijing apparently worried that should ordinary Chinese learn about the considerable concessions that it had made in areas including tariff reductions, senior cadres including former Premier Zhu Rongji would be labeled "traitors" by WTO opponents in the communist party system.
The same fears shrouded negotiations with Russia regarding a treaty that ended decades of disputes over the two countries' shared 2,700-mile border. The pact, which was officially signed in 2008, was mainly negotiated between former Presidents Jiang Zemin and Boris Yeltsin.
It legitimized Russian ownership of huge chunks of Chinese territories -- estimated to be 40 times the size of Taiwan -- that had been taken away from China in the days of the czars.
Yet in other cases, party leaders' refusal to engage the public -- including China's increasingly well-educated and sophisticated middle class -- in the formulation of foreign policy has considerably reduced the room to maneuver of officials and diplomats.
More broadly, the Communist Party leadership's recent assertiveness has stoked the flames of the "China threat" theory -- and prompted countries including Japan, South Korea, India -- and several Southeast Asian countries to join the "anti-China containment policy" supposedly spearheaded by Washington.
What now? Before Beijing can effectively navigate a host of sensitive sovereignty issues with its neighbors, President Hu and his Politburo colleagues must first seek an understanding with the Chinese public on the parameters of China's national interests -- and how to achieve them through well-recognized international norms.
In the long run, continuing to treat the Chinese people like yet another threat to be neutralized will only create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/28/is_china_afraid_of_its_own_people?page=0,1
China's newly empowered masses won't take 'no' for an answer, and Beijing is right to be scared. Why? Why does China fear its own people so much?
Apart from the party leadership's well-known tradition of undemocratic governance, the main reason behind "black-box diplomacy" is to avoid taking responsibility for failing to stand up to foreign powers such as the United States or Japan.
It is out of fear of a nationalist backlash that China's negotiations with the United States and other countries regarding its accession to the World Trade Organization for instance, were wrapped in secrecy.
Beijing apparently worried that should ordinary Chinese learn about the considerable concessions that it had made in areas including tariff reductions, senior cadres including former Premier Zhu Rongji would be labeled "traitors" by WTO opponents in the communist party system.
The same fears shrouded negotiations with Russia regarding a treaty that ended decades of disputes over the two countries' shared 2,700-mile border. The pact, which was officially signed in 2008, was mainly negotiated between former Presidents Jiang Zemin and Boris Yeltsin.
It legitimized Russian ownership of huge chunks of Chinese territories -- estimated to be 40 times the size of Taiwan -- that had been taken away from China in the days of the czars.
Yet in other cases, party leaders' refusal to engage the public -- including China's increasingly well-educated and sophisticated middle class -- in the formulation of foreign policy has considerably reduced the room to maneuver of officials and diplomats.
More broadly, the Communist Party leadership's recent assertiveness has stoked the flames of the "China threat" theory -- and prompted countries including Japan, South Korea, India -- and several Southeast Asian countries to join the "anti-China containment policy" supposedly spearheaded by Washington.
What now? Before Beijing can effectively navigate a host of sensitive sovereignty issues with its neighbors, President Hu and his Politburo colleagues must first seek an understanding with the Chinese public on the parameters of China's national interests -- and how to achieve them through well-recognized international norms.
In the long run, continuing to treat the Chinese people like yet another threat to be neutralized will only create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/09/28/is_china_afraid_of_its_own_people?page=0,1
