I ask this question because there are several conservative commentators who have what could be best described as an "ambiguous" attitude to the communist regime in China. They are always keen to emphasise that a democratic China is little more than an idealists pipe dream, that other nations highlighting the shortcomings of their governments human rights record is a futile venture, and that the Communist party just refuse to listen to any criticism (well they do have a lot to lose.). So the shortfall is don't bother -China will never be free, ever. Peter Hitchens has proclaimed loftily, presumably asking all 1.3 billion of them; that "China will never be free and has no intention of being so" Andrew Alexander has these similar sentiments also. But it is this article by Jeremy Warner, the Telegraphs deputy editor that exemplifies this kind of thing to a tee, and it also highlights another aspect to this kind of thing which gives us the ambiguity in some conservative pundits attitude to this regime.
"Why is it that the BBC, in its reporting of David Cameron’s visit to China, keeps banging on about the supposed dilemma faced by the Prime Minister over whether to raise human rights abuse, and in particular the plight of Liu Xiaobo, a prominent Chinese dissident unable to collect his Nobel peace prize because he’s serving an 11 year sentence in a Chinese jail?
There’s no dilemma here at all – except in the vague terms already referred to by Mr Cameron, this is not an issue which needs to be explored at all on a visit which is meant to be wholly about trade. Only the BBC, would, in oblivious disregard for the national interest, keep on trying to make something out of it."
Yes on technical terms it is not a visit to do with promoting democratic reform. But Cameron is a head of state of a major developed nation that supposedly prides itself on liberal democracy. Will the PM comment on this high profile dissident, and the contentious issue of China's human rights record, a country the UK wants to do trade with? It may not be directly relevant, but that doesn't make it a valid question.
He sticks in a bit of that horrible cultural relativism about the "suitability of liberal democracy" on non Westerners that all but says "they don't do democracy, their brains are wired up different"
"but to attempt to judge China by contemporary Western standards is neither helpful nor justified."
"China has always put ideas of the collective good above those of individual liberty, and is therefore from an entirely different cultural tradition to that of Thomas Paine, the French revolutionaries, and the rights of man. Attempts to impose Western models and ideals on the Chinese political class are therefore not just futile, they are are culturally insulting."
Jeremy I take my hat off to you. Defending the conduct despots seldom gets more imaginative than that.
"Neither the US nor the British government would take kindly to being told by the Chinese how to manage their internal, or even external, affairs; "
No I don't suppose they would. I don't think the leaders of Apartheid South Africa did, or the leaders of the USSR did. I'm sure pretty much any government doesn't appreciate criticism no matter how justified. That doesn't mean that logically you shouldn't criticise anyway. I'm not naive enough to believe that the Chinese will just give everyone the vote if we ask them nicely, and that external criticism would only be really effective if there is the right internal mechanisms to elicit change as well. But external criticism has its uses.
The remainder of the article changes tack somewhat, and this is where the ambiguity to the regime is most evident. Is the authoritarianism and disdain for individual holistic human rights (especially minority rights) at the expense of a monolithic hegemonic society, on some level appealing to some of these commentators? That these chauvinistic powers can dispense with the more "ninnyish" and self critical aspects of a liberal democracy? Does this explain:
"You don’t need to go far back in Western history to find similarly intolerant attitudes to political opposition, and as for the human rights agenda, well that’s a very recent addition indeed. The human rights industry really only started to gain traction from the 1970s onwards. Only in very recent years have human rights activists managed to subvert the law to this overarching end. Looking at a system which now demands that candles are provided for pagans practicing their dark arts at Her Majesty’s pleasure, and other such nonsenses, you can understand why the Chinese want none of it."
He actually begins to turn up the tempo even more in this bizarre passage:
"I’m not seriously arguing against western libertarianism, but some might think, looking at the country’s relative lack of crime, that the Chinese system has much to commend it. The most important thing to understand about modern China, one eminent expert once told me, is that all actions of policy, justice and administration are wholly focused on just one goal – maintaining the Communist Party elite in power.
This gives the system a strange kind of democratic accountability
Yeah it's strange in being undemocratically democratic. I wonder which way Liu Xiaobo cast his vote???
"As long as the CP keeps delivering, it will continue to command popular support and is therefore safe. Officials know that the moment they fail, their end will by nasty, brutish and short. For the moment, there is little if any appetite in China for Tiananmen Square type protest. The Chinese are too busy trying to get rich to worry about human rights."
Sentiments which can only be expressed in that way that only writers making excuses for a police state a few thousand miles away from the comfort of their office in the free world, can manage.
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