Protests in China and dictatorships' fatal flaws
For the last week, several cities across China have seen rare public protests against the government. The protests have specifically been against the government’s “Zero COVID” policy that has resulted in large parts of the country being shut down for months and many people being all but locked in their homes for that time. Last week, a fire in a building killed several people and the strict lockdowns have been blamed for the government’s slow response to it. That incident has given life to more protests that have happened since.
China is not a place where protesting is welcome. The last time there were large scale protests were the Tiananmen Square protests more than 30 years ago. Demonstrators demanding democracy, many of whom were students, were fired on by the government. That history is what makes what protestors today are doing all the more bold. So far, the protests today are not nearly as large as they were then, but that may change soon enough.
What will come of the protests is anyone’s guess. As far as I can tell, very few experts on China (of which I am definitely not one) seem to think it will lead to any major changes, let alone a revolution that topples the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). But it does present a problem for Xi Jinping aka Winnie the Pooh. He has boasted about how China has crushed the virus and is proof that dictatorships work better than democracies. Maintaining the “Zero COVID” approach has been a staple of his leadership.
Just to remind readers, I loathe the CCP with a passion reserved for few other regimes besides the likes of Russia and Saudi Arabia. I think it is the single most evil regime on earth today given its power and influence. It is every bit as evil as the Nazi Party and is responsible for the deaths of tens of millions. It is currently committing genocide and is responsible for the world going through a pandemic. I do not take a position on whether it originated from a lab leak or a zoonotic source. What is indisputable is that when people first started getting sick, the CCP lied about it, covered it up and imprisoned those who tried to warn about it. Doing that rather than nipping it at the bud is what allowed it to boil over and spread to the world. That is why I refer to COVID as the CCP Virus.
For a while, it looked like China may have avoided the worst of the pandemic and that its approach was vindicated. Then reality hit. Between a huge majority of people in China having no virus exposure, the vaccine they use being mostly ineffective and a large number of old people being unvaccinated, that illusion was going to come crashing down sooner or later. Either the virus was going to rip through the country post-vaccination like it has most everywhere else or they would have to have made a vaccine that worked so well that it prevented transmission. The alternative was to do what Xi has done, which is to keep the country in perennial lockdown mode. Pursuing that is why there are protests today.
We in the US use the word lockdown way too loosely. Even during the most restrictive time at the very beginning of the pandemic, people were still free to walk around outside. Nobody was ever confined to their own house or required to undergo testing just to walk outside or go to a grocery store. That is what has been happening in parts of China for most of this year.
I wrote earlier this year about how dictatorships have inherently fatal flaws that democracies are able to avoid. It was in reference to Russia having thoroughly botched invading Ukraine. I am sure there are plenty of people in Russia in high places who thought invading Ukraine was a bad idea and was going to go poorly, but because Putin is a dictator they could not speak out without having to worry for their lives. China has that same problem, just on a different set of issues.
One of the biggest problems China has is that the vaccine they developed does not work very well, especially against Omicron. Unlike vaccines developed in the west, their vaccine did not undergo any real outside scrutiny. It did not go through any clinical trials that were not run by the CCP. The CCP was acting as judge, jury and executioner in its own vaccine trials. That is a conflict of interest if there was ever such a thing. Had the US or any democratic government done something like that, it would have been a career ending scandal for everyone involved. Because China is a dictatorship, whatever the CCP says goes, end of story.
I am sure there are people who worked on the vaccine in China who did not believe it would work well. The problem is that because China is a dictatorship they could not say that. So the bad vaccine was developed, with all its failings, and is now the only one available in a country of well over 1 billion people. The CCP only allows the vaccine it created to be used in China. All other vaccines are banned.
It should go without saying that a country with a democratic government, a free press and whistle blower protections would not have that problem. The vaccines developed in the US were the most scrutinized vaccine trials ever. How they were made and what went into them is well known and is public information. Scientists who had questions or doubts about their safety or effectiveness were free to say so publicly. Had the US government tried to silence any critics it would have been found out very fast and there would have been a large outcry. If someone has evidence that the vaccines are ineffective or bad, they can publish their findings and be heard out. Even if someone lies about vaccine effectiveness and encourages people to not get vaccinated, they are not imprisoned or fined for it.
If there were vaccines developed in other countries that were highly effective and the US government was banning them, that, too, would be a career ending scandal for all involved. There would be protests everywhere and I would be taking part in them. We have the ability to criticize our government on all fronts without fear of fines or imprisonment. That includes criticizing the CDC, the FDA and other public health officials. People in China do not have that ability. The CCP is the only show in town and is accountable to nobody. If the CCP says its vaccine is good, then it is good. If the CCP says only its vaccine can be used, then that is the end of it. Anyone who disagrees better keep that thought to themselves if they want to stay out of prison.
Xi not only likes to boast about the China way being efficient, but also being more competent compared to democracies. In his eyes, what he is doing is showing the world that autocracy is the way to go. That is why he has done away with the two-term limit imposed on previous CCP leaders and has tried to consolidate every last ounce of power in his own hands. It is not enough for him to control politics. He wants to be another Mao Zedong and to control every last aspect of life in China. That is why he is exerting greater control over their economy and is trying to micromanage everyone's life. He is even trying to limit when kids are allowed to play video games.
One problem with dictators is that they are generally not very competent no matter how much it seems like they are at first. Adolf Hitler conquered many countries effortlessly before overreaching and being defeated. Napoleon Bonaparte did the same thing 130 years earlier. Much more recently, Putin looked like he had it all figured out and was the model of a masculine tough guy for many right-wingers in the west. Then he invaded Ukraine and it became clear that the emperor had no clothes. Xi looks to be following that same path.
Dictatorships can move quickly when they make decisions, but that only works if every decision they make is a good one. Xi has moved quickly to impose greater government control over the Chinese economy. Given the track record of how government-run businesses have done, most notably in the USSR, that is not likely to wind up being a good decision. Because China is a dictatorship, nobody who thinks taking over large parts of the economy is bad will be able to criticize it, let alone stop it from happening.
That is just one of many examples of the pitfalls Xi is running into. His opting for perennial lockdowns rather than requiring vaccination is another example. It really is something that he will impose draconian lockdowns for months on end, but will not require anyone to get vaccinated. He is not only making bad decisions, but it does not seem like he is even that smart. I am sure there are people in China in a position of authority who think perennial lockdowns and not allowing in western vaccines are bad. But because China is a dictatorship, they are staying silent and bad decisions keep getting made.
Going back to the protests, I am not going to make any predictions about what the future holds. I would love to think that there will be a revolution that will overthrow the CCP and create a democracy, but that would be naïve and pure fantasy. It would be great to believe the people protesting want democracy. I hope I am wrong, but I have doubts. I really do not think many people in China believe in democracy. Most people there seem perfectly content to live under a dictatorship as long as they have some personal freedom and enjoy rising living standards. That is to say they are fine living under an authoritarian government, but not one that is totalitarian. That may be Xi’s biggest problem.
China is a dictatorship, but is not totalitarian. People there have some economic and cultural freedom. That is what makes totalitarian societies different from ones that are authoritarian.* Totalitarianism means that there is no life separate from the ruling party. Every last aspect of life revolves around that. China under Mao Zedong was basically like that and Xi wants to make it that way again, just with everything revolving around him. Securing a third term in power is one step towards achieving that.
Xi’s desire to make China totalitarian can be seen in his efforts to centrally run the economy, to crack down on technology companies and force them to do his bidding, to limit when kids can play video games, etc. He wants to control literally everything that everyone in China does. He wants to determine when and where anyone can do anything. While most people in China may not mind a dictatorship, they have probably gotten used to having some economic and cultural freedom and may not be willing to lose it. Maybe that will be Xi’s undoing, but if so that seems like a long way off. I would think that if he got an inkling that things were getting out of control he would step back. Then again, he has consolidated power almost entirely with himself and does not tolerate any alternative views on anything so he may not connect the dots in time.
From a US standpoint, Xi may actually be good. For example, by exerting more control over the Chinese economy, it is likely to weaken, making China weaker. It was thought for a long time that the US needed China to prosper, but that looks to no longer be the case. One of the reasons for opening up trade with China was that it would prosper and become more open and free. That has definitively not happened. Letting China into the World Trade Organization was, in retrospect, a major blunder. While it is too late to undo that, it is not too late to begin moving away from economic integration with China and for the world economy to become much less dependent on it.
Today, a prosperous China means a prosperous CCP and that is not a good thing. Businesses eager to operate in China, including many US companies, have been willing to aid and abet the CCP in imposing censorship and crushing dissenters. By becoming more integrated with the world, China has made the world more like it. China is not importing democracy, but is exporting censorship. That is not okay and should not be tolerated. A weaker China means a weaker CCP and much less leverage for it to impose its will abroad.
While it would not be in the US or probably anyone’s interest for China’s economy to collapse, it is in the interest of the US and all who care about democracy for their economy to at least stagnate if not shrink a little. People in China have gotten used to economic growth for years now and it may not require much for them to start to sour on the CCP. Anything that forces the CCP to worry about its continued existence is good because that will keep its focus inward and less on trying to influence the rest of the world.
*Examples of totalitarian societies are Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Iraq under Saddam Hussein and North Korea for its entire existence. There are plenty of authoritarian countries today, but very few are totalitarian. A country that is totalitarian is also authoritarian, but not necessarily vice-versa.