What if China had taken a different path?
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E-mail Xinhua, March 10, 2015
A discussion on how historical events may have developed differently will not rewrite history. It does, however, offer an opportunity to consider -- and better understand -- the present, and how to forge a better future.
The ongoing annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC) provides a suitable backdrop to reflect upon the country's 61-year-old fundamental political system, and to examine how this unique model of governance has transformed the ancient middle kingdom into the world's second largest economy.
Had the world's most populous nation been governed by a bipartisan system, what would have happened?
Hindsight shows us that the Western political system, which is not inherently problematic and was designed to encourage "freedom", would have been incompatible to a country where efficiency has driven remarkable economic growth and social development.
Seemingly endless political bickering, inherent in the Western model, would have led to political dysfunction, which in turn would have brought catastrophic repercussions on a nation four times as big as the United States.
Political lobbying would dilute the unique strength and success of socialist China's "concentrating resources to do big things".
Should China have adopted a system that facilitated lobbying among interest groups, policies on domestic infrastructure to bills that had worldwide implication would be caught in a self perpetuating cycle of limitless debates.
China is the world's leading emitter of C02, however, had financial oligarchies been allowed to run the nation like a profit-seeking conglomerate, a carbon emission deal -- such as the climate accord reached between Beijing and Washington during the 2014 APEC meeting -- would have been out of the question.
Even in comparison with the Republicans in the United States, filibusters in Chinese Congress would have made any health care or poverty reduction bill extremely difficult to pass.
Further, China's feat of becoming the first developing country to halve its population living in poverty would have never been accomplished.
Half of the 1.3-billion population may have been recipients of foreign aid, making it a huge burden on the world.
At best, China would have been another India, the world's biggest democracy by Western standards, where around 20 percent of the world's poorest live and whose democracy focuses on how power is divided.
In 2014, India registered a per capital gross domestic product (GDP) equal to a mere quarter of China's GDP.
Or, China could have become certain African democratic country that has struggled with civil wars, military junta, coup d'etats and the "curse of resources" for decades following the end of Western colonial rule in the 1960s.
Should China's mainstream political parties have been fiscally irresponsible and pursued interventionist policies globally, like in the United States, the People's Liberation Army would have received an inflated military budget -- at the expense of development projects.
This situation would have fed nationalist sentiment, and wars would be imminent. This would have only been good news for opportunists and arms dealers, who would have rushed to cash in on the unrest.
A system that allows plurality is fertile ground for election rigging, vote buying and the silencing of minorities. In a country as ethnically and geographically diverse as China, the fires of opposition would have been stoked and the nation divided
That is why in his article "Why Socialism?", Albert Einstein said that in a capitalist society: "Legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists. So the representatives of the people do not [...] protect the interests of the underprivileged."
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