Watching Barack Obama's presidential election victory speech in the evening of November 4, one can not help but marvel at America's capacity to renew itself. With what he called "the power of our democracy", Mr. Obama captured that historical moment not only for the American people, but for people around the world.
Indeed, no nation in today's world can make sustained progress towards modernity with an outdated political system. After 30 years' economic reform, there is a need to reform China's political superstructure to make it compatible with its evolved and still evolving economic fundamentals. Without such reform, the dream of The Great Renaissance of Chinese Nations would be beyond the reach of this generation of Chinese people.
Yet, democracy is more than just a political system. Democracy is an attitude, a culture, a way of life. Surprisingly to many, Chinese culture already contains tremendous resources that are consistent with the principles of a communitarian democracy. As philosophers David Hall and Roger Ames point out, despite decades of communist rule, communism has never been the defining creed of Chinese people. Rooted in the longest uninterrupted civilization, Chinese philosophical sensibilities are remarkably close to American Pragmatism.
For this reason, China's democratization can be propelled from within. But China should also learn from the experiences of other democracies, including Taiwan's. This is not to merely copy their practices, but to transcend them. Even in the United States, despite the overwhelming faith Americans have in their founding documents, far-sighted thinkers recognize that no democracy is perfect, even for its own situations.
It is therefore the calling of this generation of Chinese people to build a Chinese-style democracy in China. This democracy will be vastly different from the Western-style, liberal democracy characterized with atomistic individualism, yet also provide a philosophical platform for dialogue with its Western counterparts.
Before we discuss China's democratization - a process that will likely take many years to accomplish in an ideal environment - we need to know where we are going first. In other words, what will a Chinese-style democracy look like on a practical level?
To answer that question, I will start with an observation I heard many times during the recent U.S. presidential election: "The United States is essentially a central-right country."
From this observation arose many interesting questions, such as: What does it take to elect a Democratic president in a central-right country? Since I was interested in China's democratization, I asked myself: What about China in terms of its position on the left-right political spectrum?
That China is a central-left country seemed obvious to me. Perhaps we should ask the same question in historical and global contexts.
Looking back at history, China was definitely a leftist country 60 years ago. Since the late 1970's, China has been gradually moving to the right in keeping with its economic development. Looking into the future, China will continue its slow rightward political movement. However, given its conditions such as culture, populace, stage of economic development and recent history, China will remain a central-left country for a long time to come. From a global perspective, China has been moving towards the political center among the league of nations for quite some time. Now it's safe to say that China is the most important country among those around the international political center.
All these have implications for China's democratic future, such as party politics, ongoing economic debate, and impact on the world at large.
(TBD)
