The case for Mainland China

This is a difficult article to write as it goes against my beliefs in individual freedom. It also may seem incongruous to write positively about Mainland China when one lives in Taiwan, under the threat of its military. I have lived 27 years in Taiwan and I love this island. I hope it can continue to live in peace with its 1.4 billion neighbors on the Mainland. That's my motivation to help diffusing the increasing tensions between the US and China. That's why I'm writing this article in English instead of French. And since acts speak louder than words, I will focus facts rather than story telling. 

So let's have a look at what China has become since Tian An Men happened on June 4th, 1989. This date is important, because this marks the last massacre of civilians in China and it's continuously mentioned as a point of criticism towards the Chinese leadership. The unofficial numbers of people killed ranges from 200 to 10,000 or more. This death toll of Tian An Men is dwarfed by the three years of the Great Famine that killed between 15 million and 55 million people in the years 1959 to 1961. This is what pure evil looks like. Several thousand people in a country of over a billion people is the death toll one expects every year to maintain order in a dictatorship. The comparison is flawed, because we're not comparing the same situations, but let's put it in perspective with the US police killing about 1000 civilians every year.

The West criticizes the Beijing authorities for keeping the Tian An Men a secret and refusing to apologize and take responsibility. But what I find remarkable is that since 1989, there has been no other such incident in China. There have been protests and (arbitrary) arrests, but nothing that came close to Tian An Men. And we can also interpret the secrecy around the event as a recognition of guilt and shame. The Communist leadership knows this was wrong and the fact that it was a one time event shows that they have striven to improve their behavior and give the Chinese people fewer reasons to revolt. The Chinese Communist Party probably understands that its grip on power is fragile and rests on its effective and successful leadership of the country. So, how effective and successful has Beijing been since 1990?

1. The economy

From 1990 to 2021, China's GDP grew from USD360 billion to USD 17.7 trillion by 13.7% annually. This is much faster than Vietnam (9.7%) in Asia or even former communist countries that would join the EU: the Czech Republic (8.9%), Romania (8.7%), Poland (8.5%), Lithuania (6.5%), Estonia (6.2%), Hungary (4.6%), Russia (4.5%). So, from a purely economic point of view, the CCP can boast that its one party rule has ushered (much) faster growth than the democratic rule of similar former communist nations. This has benefited the poor as China went from an extreme poverty rate above 60% in 1990 to nil nowadays. This means that over 600 million people have escaped poverty at a very quick pace thanks to this roaring economy.  

This is very different from the situation of most Soviet dictatorships before the  fall of the wall: countries with little growth, with rich apparatchiks on one hand and poor citizens on the other.

The economic growth of China also compares very favorably to poor, but democratic India (7.5% per year growth), rich South Korea (5.2%), the USA (3.9%), Germany (3.8%), the UK (3.5%), France (2.4%) or Japan (2.4%). Let's just note that none of these countries has become poorer while China got richer. It's the pie that became larger.

2. Freedom of movement 

Freedom of movement is something that was lacking in communist countries before 1989. In this regard, China has certainly improved a lot. Before the Covid, in 2019, China tourists numbered 155 million! Not only were they allowed to leave the country, but they also would return to China, which isn't something you would have expected former citizens of the German Democratic Republic (aka DDR) to do.

3. Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and culture

For a long time, the West criticized China for copying and stealing Western technology and IPR. They were benefiting from the West's efforts and were saving money, because they didn't have to invest in R&D. Actually, for the French luxury makers, the fake Chinese replicas have been free advertisement and now that Chinese customers can afford the real Vuitton, they purchase them and enrich Bernard Arnaud! As for research, China has overtaken the USA in contribution to research in Nature Index. China isn't a free rider anymore, but has turned into a talented competitor. The quality of its universities and student deserves a lot of praise.

This brings us to another change: the new generation of Chinese is much gentler and better educated than the generation that is now retiring (or has already retired). In Taiwan, under the Ma (KMT) administration (2008-2016), when there were lots of Chinese groups visiting the island, it was very easy to spot the Mainland Chinese: they were loud spoken and kind of rude. The explanation is that they had to fight for survival in their childhood, at a time of great turmoil. The young Chinese, on the other hand, are often single kids who received a lot of attention from their parents. A lot of expectations have been placed on them and they had to compete for top grades in school. In my personal experience, the post 1990 generation is smart, optimistic and polite. 

Living in Taiwan has also enabled me to get a glimpse of what the Chinese are watching on TV or their smartphones. I'm not talking about the news from the State TV, but the shows and series that are produced in China. What is striking is that these programs are not talking about politics. However, if you want to look for underlying political messages, you may notice that police is smart and on the citizens' side. That it pays to work hard. That corrupt business people end up in jail. That it's better to become a less paid teacher than a rich sales person. Recently, the number of gay characters has also been reduced in Chinese dramas, in order to shield the youth from questionable role models. While this censorship may be described as conservative, it doesn't strike me as more nefarious than what's going on in the leftist entertainment industry in Hollywood or France. Try to get a subsidy for a nationalist movie in France! But my main point is that the CCP is trying to make decent citizens much more than they are trying to turn them into loyal communists. 

4. Climate Change

Pollution is a more recent criticism from the West after it moved most of its heavy industries to China! Indeed, nowadays China is the largest consumer of coal worldwide:

An booming economy requires a lot of energy and coal has long been the fastest and cheapest way to increase energy production in China. The Chinese grid is still under so much stress from high energy demand that black outs are still common in China, especially in the hottest days of summer! Besides, on a per capita base, China's CO2 emissions are 9.7 tons. This is lower than Germany (10.6 t), Japan (10 t) or the USA (19.2 t) according to the UN.

We should also recognize that China has slowed down its coal consumption in recent years as it has invested heavily in renewables and nuclear plants. China's nuclear plants in construction or planning are as numerous as what's in construction/planned in the rest of the world! So, strong measures have already been taken and China is already the leader in Electric cars with 14.1 million units out of 25.9 million units in the whole world.

5. The military threat

So called experts point to the rising military expenditures of China to raise the alert about China's growing military threat. However, a closer look at defense spending shows that China's spending is lower than US both in absolute numbers (USD 292 billion vs USD 877 billion in 2022) and as a percentage of GDP 1.6% vs 3.5%: 

The other fact we should bear in mind is that the last time that China conducted a military operation outside its borders was 1979! It's the permanent member of the UN Security Council (the others are USA, Russia, UK, France) with the most peaceful track record since 1990. It even brokered a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and the Iran recently.

6. Democracy

I almost forgot about this last point! Actually, I think that the Chinese will switch to the democratic system as soon as they'll think that it will bring them more advantages than the current one party system. However, as they compare with the West, the Chinese people can see that democracies have quite a lot of flaws and are far from perfect. Like many people on the right in the US, the EU and in France, I feel that the country is governed by a 'deep State', a perpetual bureaucracy that remains in power no matter who's in office. Maybe the one party system is a more honest and efficient version of our 'deep State'!? Compared to China, what we call democracies don't grow their economies faster, don't educate their people better, don't protect their border tighter, don't keep the streets safer, don't protect the value of their currency better against inflation... 

Maybe the USA and most Western countries should start to clean up their own affairs before berating China on how it chooses its leaders. Ours resemble a drunken man giving sobriety lessons to someone who's been sober for 30 years!

Conclusion

Since 1990, the CCP has delivered great results to its people in terms of wealth, property rights, education security and the fight against pollution. There's still lot of progress that can be made, of course, but the current talk of China as a great threat to the world seems completely overblown when we examine the facts.