Robert Lawrence Kuhn, an international investment banker, biographer, corporate strategist and paid advisor to the Chinese government, is the face of China's PR campaign for the Chinese Communist Party's (CPC) 90th anniversary. The publication of his China Daily article "China 'best served'' with CPC at the helm" as two-page advertising supplements in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal shows China's desire to legitimize itself in the eyes of the international community.
Kuhn is not the only advocate of Chinese-style one-party rule. Among those joining him are New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman and investor-philanthropist George Soros. Both praise the CPC's sound and timely decision making. Some scholars also argue that "benevolent" one-party rule is better for poor countries that cannot afford "messy" democracies at early stages of development. They point to contemporary China, South Korea and Taiwan in their early years as cases in point. (Both South Korea and Taiwan transitioned to democracy within two decades. The CPC has exercised one-party rule for more than a half century with no end in sight.)
In his widely distributed article, Kuhn makes the following case for China's one-party rule, while cleverly admitting its shortfalls and weaknesses:
Kuhn: Leadership mistakes are a thing of the past.
Kuhn admits that a one-party system can breed rulers who "trouble the people" and are driven by "ideological madness or personal power." Clearly, Kuhn has in mind Mao's Great Leap and Cultural Revolution, which cost millions of lives and set back economic and social development for decades.
Kuhn assures us that we need not worry about repetition of policy disasters because China has rid itself of "leftist ideology." Today's CPC is "more enlightened" and "learning minded." The Chinese people can therefore count on their enlightened CPC leaders to make only wise decisions.
As proof, Kuhn points to the successful reforms started in 1978 shortly after Mao's death and the rapid economic growth that followed it. Kuhn also argues that China's one-party system can institute critical policies rapidly. He cites the 2008 stimulus that insulated China against the world financial crisis to the praise and adulation of an admiring world. "If only we could move as fast as the Chinese."
Gregory: CPC leaders can and do make major mistakes with no personal consequences.
In democracies, leaders who make bad and even disastrous decisions are punished at the ballot box. When China's leaders make such mistakes, there are no referendums or regular elections to replace them. In fact, their massive propaganda machine can transform failures into successes.
Despite Kuhn's claim to the contrary, the CPC has made and is making a number of serious mistakes:
First, the CPC's most disastrous policy blunder has been its one-child policy, introduced in 1979 and continued throughout the reform era. The one-child policy has clashed with the wishes of the Chinese people. It has been enforced by an intrusive neighborhood surveillance network and by brutal forced abortions, even in late term. In addition to traumatizing many Chinese families, the one-child policy has left China with an aging population and a shrinking labor force. Many Chinese men do not have the opportunity to marry and have children as a consequence of the skewed male-female balance.
Second, the CPC's current policy of "the state advances, the private sector retreats" strikes at the heart of Chinese growth, which is private enterprise. "State advances, private sector retreats" disadvantages private enterprise in a number of ways and lavishes credit, subsidies and favorable regulations on state-owned enterprises. But it is private enterprises that produce high rates of return despite their many disadvantages. State-owned enterprises earn low or even negative rates of return on bank credit, credit allocated according to political connections. "State advances, private sector retreats," if seriously implemented, will kill the goose that lays the golden egg of rapid Chinese growth.
Third, the first Chinese reforms were not instituted by the CPC. In fact, during the early stages of decollectivization and creating private trade, the CPC actively opposed reform. In a surprising admission, Kuhn himself admits that reform "has often begun at the grassroots levels and put into ‘gray" practice', and "it was only after the reform had been working did the CPC leadership recognize the reform's success and make it official policy." So the very reform that Kuhn credits to wise CPC leaders emerged from grassroots economic democracy and was opposed until the CPC leadership reluctantly recognized its value.
Fourth, Kuhn's assurances that "ideological excesses" are a thing of the past may prove untrue. As the CPC prepares to elect a new Politburo majority in 2012, the "Red Campaign" is resonating strongly among those who favor a return to earlier years. Whether "Reformers" or "Red Campaigners" win this struggle remains to be seen. If the Red Campaigners win, what assurances are there that the CPC will not return to "ideological excesses?"
Kuhn: The Chinese must be ready for democracy; premature democracy is dangerous.
Kuhn writes: It is "only when most Chinese citizens have sufficient education and adequate living standards that more participatory political systems may be considered." Premature democracy is dangerous, he writes, because it would "sacrifice long-term economic development for short-term political freedom, and therefore not bring the greatest good to the greatest number." Even worse, a multi-party system would "consume significant resources in political battles and severe social conflict could erupt."
Kuhn notes candidly that is "not possible to have a genuinely free press and maintain one-party rule."
Kuhn ends on an optimistic note: There will eventually come a time when a multi-party system will not retard economic development, and China can use political democracy to tame corruption and allow a free press. The "political leadership must figure out" when that point is reached." How and when the political elite decide to disenfranchise itself is a question Kuhn does not address.
Gregory: One-party dictatorships suppress (not eliminate) conflict and do not eliminate themselves when the time for democracy comes.
Even the most benevolent of dictators cannot allocate economic and political resources without conflict. Political and economic resources are scarce. Their distribution among the population engenders conflict by definition. Thus, any claim that the CPC can eliminate conflict in the distribution of economic and political resources must be patently false.
The conflict is there, but the CPC uses propaganda and a controlled press either to bury it, or pretend it does not exist.
In market democracies, voters and the market determine "who gets what." In China, the CPC decides who lives where, which companies get state credits, what prices to charge for high-speed rail, how to clear occupied land for new construction, what wages to set, how much corruption to tolerate, and whether to allow citizens to attend church on Sunday.
In each of these cases, there are winners and losers. In China, sore losers have few opportunities to appeal. They cannot go to a free press, and they feel helpless. The result is riots, strikes, and simmering social unrest which the CPC must either repress by force or tamp down by targeted concessions. Or the CPC can direct internal disorder outward by encouraging nationalist hostility to neighbors.
Kuhn also does not mention the greatest source of conflict: The grasping hand of the elite as it takes land from ordinary citizens, shakes down private entrepreneurs, takes over successful private businesses, and takes bribes to permit private businesses to exist.
Kuhn uses unconstrained democracy as his foil. He does not contrast the CPC one-party rule with a democracy with reasonable constitutional teeth. Even in messy constitutional democracies, such as India's, basic rules must be followed, and the democratic political system offers sufficient political and social order for rapid economic growth and rising living standards. Most important, in the Indian democracy, a poorly-performing ruling party will be booted out of office by voters.
On an empirical note, Kuhn fails to mention that there are no affluent one-party democracies except in resource-rich and population-poor countries. If we use history as our guide, only democracy has produced high living standards, not CPC-like dictatorships. And those countries that are now rich did not wait to introduce democracy until their peoples were rich and well educated. The slogan: "bread first, freedom later" has appeal, but it has yet to work in the long run.
Kuhn assures us that CPC leaders stake their legitimacy on performance: "The CPC will continue to be the ruling party, only if the CPC serves the people, not itself." Such pledges hold little water. I know of no historical precedent of a dictatorial regime removing itself for poor decision-making in an act of self-flagellation. Instead, the worse the performance, the more the regime clings to power to avoid the day of reckoning with the people. I would challenge Kuhn to explain how the CPC will withdraw from power if its performance is unsatisfactory?
Kuhn: The Chinese people are satisfied with the social contract of economic freedom in place of political freedom.
Kuhn claims that the Chinese people are satisfied with the social contract that the CPC offers them: "They receive economic human rights to a decent standard of living, and these social human rights are more important than the unfettered political human rights of a relatively few people [dissidents]."
Kuhn explains that there is a tradeoff between economic and human rights. For the CPC to deliver economic human rights, political stability is required and "political stability requires a one-party system, which itself requires limitations of certain political rights, such as assembly, and restrictions of media freedoms, namely, political debate."
Kuhn argues that the CPC social contract is a good deal: The Chinese people have more personal and social freedoms than at any time in their long history and they are more affluent than ever before.
Gregory: The CPC social contract does not offer economic freedom.
By my reckoning, the CPC social contract gives the Chinese people a bad deal. They have preciously little economic freedom (as I would define it) to compensate for their lack of political freedoms. They are not allowed to live where they want. They do not have secure property rights to the land on which they live or the farmland they cultivate. Businesses cannot enter into contracts that will be enforced by courts that follow a rule of law. The CPC dictates how many children they can have. Private persons must bribe corrupt state and party officials to do business. Private businesses lack access to bank loans, and they are disadvantaged by regulators vis-à-vis state businesses.
The ultimate lack of freedom is that the CPC can take virtually any arbitrary action against the people in their economic and social lives, and they can do nothing to stop this. The lack of a rule of law is perhaps more deadly than the lack of democracy.
Kuhn: The Chinese people support the one-party system despite all of its problems.
Kuhn assures his readers that "the Chinese people support the one-party system led by the CPC--notwithstanding all China's problems, including social inequality and corruption." The support of the people "is confirmed by independent Western surveys." And the Chinese people are right to support CPC one-party rule. After all, CPC leaders, whom Kuhn knows well, "seek policies that increase the standard of living and general well-being of the Chinese people, irrespective of ideology."
Gregory: If the Chinese people support the one-party system, why is it so afraid of the people?
If you were an ordinary Chinese citizen, how would you answer a survey researcher asking you whether you like the CPC regime or not? The answer is obvious and so much for Kuhn's proof of regime popularity.
If the people support the CPC, why is it so afraid? Why does it crack down mercilessly on informal Christian religious services? Why does a Nobel Prize awarded a dissident poet create an international incident? Why does it grow hysterical when a foreign leader receives the Dalai Lama? Why is it so fearful of public protests or strikes?
The answer: The CPC realizes that it has no basis for legitimacy; therefore, it must repress any hint of an alternative or a challenge to its legitimacy. Growing church attendance suggests to the CPC that one day the church could challenge its monopoly, as it did in Communist Poland. If workers organize into real labor unions, the unions could eventually become an alternate political movement. A lone dissident may strike a chord among the people that sets off something that they cannot suppress by their usual repression. The CPC leaders look with fear and trembling at the Arab Spring, knowing it could happen in their backyard.
The heart of Kuhn's argument, true or false, is that the CPC monopoly delivers the most to the greatest number of people at the sacrifice of only a few. For the sake of argument, let's say that the Chinese system indeed produces higher growth, less unemployment, and higher living standards than a multi-party system. To achieve these things, let's assume that a small number of people -- jailed dissidents, bloggers deprived of their platforms, or a few poor people deprived of their land by a local party boss – must be sacrificed.
Each society must consult its collective conscience. Are we prepared to sacrifice (brutally in the Chinese case) a few for the benefit of many? Kuhn argues that the answer is yes. I would hope that most others would give a negative answer.
Paul Roderick Gregory is a Hoover Institution research fellow.
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