Chapter 20 3. Don’t be fooled by Western discourse

The great American writer Mark Twain said a famous saying: To a man who has only a hammer in his hand, all the problems he sees are nails.The West only has a hammer in its hands, and its name is "democracy, freedom, and human rights." Of course, its definition can only be defined by the West.The West uses this hammer to beat others everywhere, trying to balance the world and realize the global integration of its own political, economic and other strategic interests.It was just beating all the way, and countless people were knocked down, but when it hit the nail of China, his hammer broke.Why is it folded?One is that the quality of the hammer itself is not good, and the hammer cracked before the nail was hammered in; the other is that the nail is too hard, it was cast with a history of 5,000 years, and it has absorbed a lot of rare metals from the West.This nail is the Chinese model and Chinese discourse, and it is the foundation and confidence of being a "civilized country".In fact, democracy, freedom, and human rights are all good things, but how to define these concepts, the Chinese have something to say, and they cannot be easily fooled by the West.

I once introduced China's exploration of democracy construction at an international forum in Belgium.At that time, an American scholar said to me beyond doubt: "To practice democracy, one person, one vote must be adopted in elections, otherwise it is not a democratic country." It wasn't a democracy before you got the right to vote." He looked a little surprised, obviously never thinking about it.I said, "Actually, what I am worried about is not your overly narrow interpretation of democracy, but your dogmatic attitude towards democracy. Don't you know how Bush Jr.'s 'Great Middle East Democracy Project' went bankrupt?" Don’t you know how many disasters democratic dogmatism has brought to the world?” He was not convinced, and asked me: “Churchill once said that ‘democracy is the least bad system’, don’t you know?” I said: “ Churchill said this in the context of a developed country in 1947, and he himself has consistently defended the British Empire, which runs counter to democracy. He has always opposed Indian independence, let alone supported India’s adoption of Western democratic systems.”

How to define democracy has always been controversial in the world.Western mainstream discourse generally defines democracy as "procedural democracy".For example, when discussing the so-called "third wave of democratization", Western scholars and politicians almost without exception define democracy as a multi-party electoral system.It's just that more than 20 years have passed, and people have discovered that the quality of democracy in these "democratic countries" is generally low. After elections, almost all of them are opportunistic politicians, and there are no outstanding politicians.These countries have "constitutional government" and "separation of powers" in name, but they cannot curb corruption, not many people's livelihood has been improved, and many countries have fallen into chaos and turmoil. Western countries are also disappointed with this wave of "democratization".

The United States promotes "democracy" all over the world, but its own democracy is far from the ideal democracy.For example, why does democracy cost so much money?Can spending so much money still be democracy?Doesn't spending so much money become a "money master"?Isn't that Capital-Driven Democracy? ?Isn't this the underlying cause of the US financial crisis?Capital opens the way, and everything else gives way. How can such a democratic quality have credibility?The degree of commercialization (overwhelming advertisements), vulgarization (blindly pleasing voters) and monetization (elections are expensive beyond ordinary people's imagination) of American democracy is breathtaking.Even President Obama admitted frankly in his book "The Audacity of Hope": "Electricity requires television media and advertising, which requires money, and the process of getting money is a process that produces corrupt influence. It is necessary to take care of the interests of those who provide money. Although it is possible to use government money (but this money is very limited, not enough to deal with elections, and there may be many conditions attached).” This American model is often moved to other places very quickly It turned into black money politics, and we have seen this in South Korea and Taiwan, let alone the third world.In my opinion, the inability of the US political system to check and balance the powerful capital force is the deep-seated reason for the US financial crisis.

In addition, reducing democracy to "procedural democracy" is actually a manifestation of democratic alienation, which leads to many rather absurd situations.For example, Icelanders voted for the Halder government, but this government failed to govern the country and bankrupted the country. Does this represent the will of the Icelandic people?The situation in Greece is the same. The democratically elected government only knows how to spend money and engage in populism. As a result, the country also went bankrupt. Does this also represent the will of the Greek people?Does Chen Shui-bian's eight years of corruption and rampant corruption also represent the will of the people in Taiwan?The French thinker Rousseau made this comment on this type of democracy more than two hundred years ago: "The British people think they are free; they are very wrong. They are free only during the election of members of Parliament. ; Once the members are elected, they are slaves, and they are equal to zero.” However, the democratic design proposed by Rousseau himself is too idealistic and difficult to operate in practice.

To be fair, an ideal democracy should be a combination of "substantive democracy" and "procedural democracy", but first of all it is "substantial democracy", that is, to reflect the content of democracy and the value it serves. The content of democracy is to reflect the people's will. The value of democracy lies in the realization of good governance of the country and the high-quality life of the people, and the procedures and forms of democracy should be explored by each country according to its own national conditions and national conditions. This process of exploration is far from over.It is in this sense that China's political exploration today will have worldwide significance.

I broadly divide non-Western countries that adopt Western democracies into two categories.One category is countries from hope to disappointment, such as Thailand, Mongolia, Philippines, Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan.The other category is countries from hope to despair, such as Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan.There are many reasons for such an outcome, one of the main reasons is that many developing countries are not yet "nation-states" in the Western sense, and most countries in Africa are still tribal countries, that is, people identify with their tribes more than they identify with the country , and the result of the multi-party electoral system is often to intensify tribal conflicts, leading to ethnic divisions and even killings.The same is true in Afghanistan. The central government elected by "democracy" is useless, and people's support for their own tribes is much higher than that for the central government.Iraqis are also more loyal to sectarian (Shia versus Sunni) and ethnic (eg Kurt) than to the central government.Iraq is a country with a population of just over 23 million, but this war in the name of promoting "democratization" has caused the deaths of at least 100,000 civilians (the United States has so far refused to disclose the number of Iraqi civilians killed, how can a "democratic" country would it be so lacking in transparency?), one-eighth of the civilian population was displaced, and the death toll in the United States itself had already exceeded 4,000. Bloodshed and disaster.

After the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine, internal strife continued, and the country had no peace. Under the impact of the financial tsunami, the country's economy was on the verge of collapse. In 2010, Yanukovych, who was overthrown by the "Orange Revolution", came back to power, marking this The Orange Revolution faded; after the "Rose Revolution", Georgia went to war rashly over the issue of South Ossetia, and has yet to recover from the defeat; after the "Tulip Revolution", Kyrgyzstan's political arena fell into endless party disputes, and the country's North-South division intensified , people's livelihood is very difficult. Riots and civil war in April 2010 again cast doubt on the future of the small country of more than five million people.Haiti is also an example.Haiti was once colonized by the "democratic" France, and then ruled by the "democratic" United States for 20 years. In the past 20 years, it has implemented American-style "democratization", but in the end it became a "failed country" that was impoverished.The pain caused by the 2010 earthquake in Haiti is not only physical, but also political.Looking around the entire developing world, I can't find a single example of a non-Western country becoming a modern powerhouse by implementing the Western model.

That's why I don't think it's enough to say "democracy is a good thing" it's like saying cars are a good thing because cars go faster than horse-drawn carts and everyone understands that but we also need to know the state of the roads , the muddy path car just can't drive.In addition, there are many means of transportation that run faster than cars, such as high-speed trains, magnetic levitation, airplanes, etc. Humans will also have new innovations.Therefore, "democracy is a good thing" should be followed by the sentence "high-quality democracy is the real good thing", so that our understanding of democracy can become more in-depth and comprehensive.The democracy that the Chinese want to realize is a high-quality democracy that can bring prosperity to China and the happiness of the people, not a low-quality democracy that will tear China apart and make people miserable.

Let's go back to the discussion at the beginning.I said that China should boldly explore the establishment of a new democratic system.The American scholar insisted that a democratic country should follow the six elements proposed by American political scientist Robert Alan Dahl (elected officials, free and regular elections, freedom of speech, multiple sources of information, independent associations, citizen participation ), otherwise it cannot be considered a democracy.I said: "You are called democratic dogmatism. If Yugoslavia does it like this, the country will disintegrate; if the Soviet Union does it like this, the country will also disintegrate; if Eastern Europe does it like this, there will be more disappointments than hopes; if the third world does it like this, each one will be worse than the other... China's democratic construction will refer to the experience of the West, including these six elements, but it will also vigorously tap its own political resources, including the thousands-year-old system of 'selecting the best and appointing the best' in China." He asked: "Your so-called new What does the democratic system refer to?" I said, "We are still exploring, but the core content should be to gradually establish a first-class talent selection mechanism, a first-class democratic supervision mechanism, and a first-class social consultation mechanism." He shook his head and said, "Western I won’t recognize this kind of democracy.” I smiled and said to him, “It’s okay. China’s economic reform has come to this day, and the West still doesn’t recognize China as a market economy. Do you want to wait until China becomes the world’s largest economy? When will you come to admit it again? The same is true on the issue of democracy. China is a big country, and what is successfully tested and practiced in China is the truth. With all due respect, I really don’t know who will admit who at that time.”