Will China get more liberal in the next twenty years?

[aristotle1990]

A lot of people have been predicting for a while now that as China's economy modernizes, its people will naturally start demanding more political freedom, and China will begin gradually reducing controls on the media and eventually the government. But, if anything, the government seems to moving in the opposite direction, with today's China being, in some ways, the least liberal it's been in some time.

This goes hand in hand with the belief that information is free and insuppressible and that no central body can effectively control the internet and the activites of concerned netizens. But in fact, contrary to what you'll read on websites like Digg, this is not true: the Chinese government has proven itself to be exceedingly adept at blocking "unhealty" websites and molding public opinion.

Your thoughts?

[guanfei]

I agree with your comments and would like to add some of my own. I hope our posts don't get deleted. :rolleyes:

The governments control does not seem to be any lighter than before but I believe the realization of the population is greater. They understand and talk about things much more than before and sometimes even discuss these things with me. People are also getting through the cracks in the wall to discover things that used to be undiscoverable. (I think I just invented a word).

So while the governments continues to create 'harmonious citizens through indisputably proven cultural awareness schemes' a great number of truly intelligent Chinese people are starting to see beyond the perspective given to them. (Just like Plato's parable)

I'm not sure if the intellectuals have enough energy to challenge the status-quo on anything but even a simple farmer can see the difference in the standard of living between have and have-nots and eventually that's going to cause a friction that must induce change.

[zening]

I think we shoud be givn more freedom. Actually control what one can see doesn't work out, we still can surf the foreign website through someway. So why not give us the right. by doing that, the genarous and kindly attitude of government will be presented. Moreover, I think know what others judge us is important, it would help us to reflect. Maybe to change is a slow and long progress, but the first step should be thinking and reflection.

[gato]

20 years is a long time. Compared to 1990, the year of crackdown after 1989, things are undoubtedly more liberal today, but even generally, there has probably been more liberalization than retrenchment over the long term.

Things might be a little clearer if you look at individual sectors rather than talk about liberalization generally. For instance, the media, particularly on the internet and in the print press (and less so in television and movies), is probably more free today than it's ever been, certain more free than in 1990, and probably more free than in 1988 even. It's true that the government has been aggressive in increasing censorship of the internet in the last few years, but one could consider that as an attempt to slow down the fast pace of liberalization rather than an attempt to roll back the clock completely.

One might see the same pattern of liberalization and conservative backlash in the judicial area, but the tightening of political control over the courts in the last few years haven't been so severe as to cancel out all the progress at liberalization altogether, i.e. the increased professionalization of judges and the more independent role for judges to enforce the law instead of serving as administrators for politicians.

[Yang Rui]

The 'freedom' thing in China doesn't seem to move in a straight line from less to more freedom. Over the last thirty years there have been times of relaxation and times of constriction. For example, the mid 1980s was fairly relaxed, but the early-to-mid nineties were quite severe. Things seemed to be relaxing in the early 2000s, and I think now we are seeing more of a conservative view coming back into play. It's hard to say where it will lead. Although a lot of people seem to assume the trend is towards more freedom, we can see that in countries like the US and UK, the state has become more intrusive - not necessarily restrictive, but certainly taking a more active role in monitoring people's lives. I'm sure the Chinese, just like the British, will tend to make increasing use of technologies like CCTV, vehicle registration plate recognition, tracking electronic communication etc. Who knows where things will end up?

[GreenArrow45]

I think that the process of liberalisation and "democratization", the latter of which I hope doesn't happen in China yet, is directly dependent on the improvement of education in China. That's not to say that I think Chinese people are uneducated, its just that the way their system works, too many people blindly believe everything that they see on the news or read in their textbooks, they aren't encouraged so much to be looking at all different perspectives on an issue. I do agree though, that the country has come a long way the past couple decades with its "liberalisation".

However, China does have a history of dynasties and (correct me if I'm wrong) but it is usually an outside invader or members of the peasant class that force a change in the ruling dynasty. So, although I hope that doesn't happen with the CCP dynasty, it isn't out of the question. Who can say if a new dynasty would be worse or better though, so, given that there isn't too much tension surrounding China and they played a fairly major role in ending the Cold War (threat of a nuclear world war), we should be happy with whatever they do with regards to liberalisation or not. ;)

[YuehanHao]

Yesterday, my wife bought a book entitled The Beijing Consensus. I believe it attempts to argue that China will continue to follow and be economically and politically successful with a so-called "authoritarian capitalism" model. No government lasts forever, but my cursory knowledge of history suggests to me that governments that have chosen similar approaches with different names have often proven less persistent, like a top-heavy statue in unstable equilibrium. The head must grant individuals increasing power to ward off critical instability. If current trends continue, one would have to guess Chinese citizens will most likely enjoy incrementally greater freedom in 20 years; however, I am doubtful this condition will be satisfied. Maybe I was too young or ignorant, but I don't remember many people predicting the present world situation twenty years ago.

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