Advice for China

Published on June 6, 2011 by brooks | This story has been viewed 873 views

FROM: Ministry of State Security

 

TO: President Hu Jintao

SUBJECT: The Arab Spring

Dear President Hu: You asked for our assessment of the Arab Spring. Our conclusion is that the revolutions in the Arab world contain some important lessons for the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, because what this contagion reveals is something very new about of how revolutions unfold in the 21st century and something very old about why they explode.

Let’s start with the new. Sometime around the year 2000, the world achieved a very high level of connectivity, virtually flattening the global economic playing field. This web of connectivity was built on the diffusion of personal computers, fiber-optic cable, the Internet and Web servers. What this platform did was to make Boston and Beijing or Detroit and Damascus next-door neighbors. It brought some two billion people into a global conversation.

Well, sir, while we were focused on the U.S. recession, we went from a connected world to a “hyperconnected world.” It has connected Boston, Beijing and now Baotou in inner Mongolia. This deeper penetration of connectivity is built on smarter cellphones, wireless bandwidth and social networks. This new platform for connectivity, being so cheap and mobile, is bringing another two billion people into the conversation from more and more remote areas.

To put it in Middle Eastern terms, sir, this new platform has connected Detroit and Damascus and Dara’a. Where is Dara’a, you ask? Dara’a is the small Syrian border town where the uprising in Syria began and whose residents have been pumping out video, Twitter feeds and Facebook postings of regime atrocities ever since.

The point, sir, is the world is now hyperconnected, and there is no such thing as “local” anymore. Everything now flows instantly from the most remote corners of any country onto this global platform where it gets shared. What the laptop plus the Internet plus the search engine did for Web pages was enable anyone with connectivity to find anything that interests them and what the cellphone plus the Internet plus Facebook are doing is enabling anyone to find anyone who interests them — and then coordinate with them and share grievances and aspirations.

The days when Arab dictators could take over the state-run TV and radio and shut off all information to their people are over. The Syrians can’t shut off their cellphone networks now any more than they can shut off their electricity grids.

Sir, think about this: Syria has banned all foreign networks, like CNN and the BBC, but if you go to YouTube and type in “Dara’a” you will see the most vivid up-to-date video of the Syrian regime’s crackdown — all shot with cellphones or flip-cams by Syrians and then uploaded to YouTube or to newly created Web sites like Sham News Network. Nothing stays hidden anymore.

The second trend we see in the Arab Spring is a manifestation of “Carlson’s Law,” posited by Curtis Carlson, the C.E.O. of SRI International, in Silicon Valley, which states that: “In a world where so many people now have access to education and cheap tools of innovation, innovation that happens from the bottom up tends to be chaotic but smart. Innovation that happens from the top down tends to be orderly but dumb.” As a result, says Carlson, the sweet spot for innovation today is “moving down,” closer to the people, not up, because all the people together are smarter than anyone alone and all the people now have the tools to invent and collaborate.

The regime of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was just too dumb and slow to manage the unrest. The Tahrir revolutionaries were smart but chaotic, and without leadership. Therefore, the role of leaders today — of companies and countries — is to inspire, empower, enable and then edit and meld all that innovation coming from the bottom up. But that requires more freedom for the bottom. Do you see what I mean, sir?

But this is not about technology alone. As the Russian historian Leon Aron has noted, the Arab uprisings closely resemble the Russian democratic revolution of 1991 in one key respect: They were both not so much about freedom or food as about “dignity.” They each grew out of a deep desire by people to run their own lives and to be treated as “citizens” — with both obligations and rights that the state cannot just give and take by whim.

If you want to know what brings about revolutions, it is not G.D.P. rising or falling, says Aron, “it is the quest for dignity.” We always exaggerate people’s quest for G.D.P. and undervalue their quest for ideals. “Dignity before bread” was the slogan of the Tunisian revolution. “The spark that lights the fuse is always the quest for dignity,” said Aron. “Today’s technology just makes the fire much more difficult to put out.”

We need to keep that in mind in China, sir. We should be proud of the rising standard of living that we have delivered for our people. Many of them appreciate that. But it is not the only thing in their lives — and at some point it won’t be the most important thing. Do you see what I mean, sir?

 

I’m not sure if the 1990s era in Russia should be held up as an example of the wonderful effects of ‘democracy’ – in reality, Russia was being run into the ground by robber barons in the out-of-control hot money economy promoted by U.S. economists and IMF managers, which ended up in massive crash in 1998. Creditors then moved in to snatch assets like oil, only to be rebuffed by the Russian government, leading to revival of Cold War-style tensions over oil pipeline routes in Central Asia, Georgia, etc. in the 2000s.

That’s probably not a model China should follow too closely. They should simply recognize that they have nothing to fear from more relaxed attitudes towards public dissent and protest – and democratic elections – so long as they can keep their economy healthy.

Let’s not forget that it was the crippling economic situation, in both Russia and the Middle East (and Burma, a few years ago) that led to the uprisings and protests. That situation was of course due mainly to the corrupt government and its private cronies, something that democracy and transparent government does much to alleviate.

 

Mr. Friedman,

It makes for a nice story to say that dignity is more important than bread. But facts on the ground don’t support that assessment of the Arab Spring. Instead, they are both important to the uprisings, and at least in Egypt, bread came before dignity. And the consequence of this turns your thesis about China on its head.

To start, the unprecedented heat wave of last summer in eastern Europe and Russia, combined with misguided policy on corn ethanol in the U.S., topped off by a long-term increase in demand for meat in the far east, together produced an enormous increase in grain prices. This was felt hardest in places where grain is a high fraction of food cost, which in turn is much of household income, i.e. places like the mid-east, and working-class/rural Egypt in particular.

So global warming and rising living standards in Asia combined to create this economic shock, which catalyzed demonstrations, that ended up expressing demands outlined in Obama’s Cairo speech: democracy, respect for women, rejection of extremism, recognition of Israel. This is not happening in China, in part because living standards are still rising.

The problem now is that in Egypt at least, the transition to democracy is *not* coming with food price relief for the working class. Patience is starting to wear thin, and the regime is going to have a very hard time meeting expectations.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and Israel largely sit on the sidelines, doing close to nothing in the face of this enormous opportunity to flip the entire Arab Mediterranean coast from authoritarianism to democracy. The extreme right in both of our countries is confused, because this doesn’t fit their script of “Arab = extremist = bad”, so in their confusion, they paralyze our policies. Success would bring this entire region into the camp of democracy, putting further pressure on China and Iran. Failure would not only result in missed opportunity, but would likely promote Islamic extremism.

So although it is tempting to point to China and wag our fingers about democracy, we need to point back at ourselves and see the enormous strategic stakes here. We spend $100 billion/year in Afghanistan, and hundreds of billions more on fancy weapons development and procurement. Our extreme right is inflaming passions against spending a few billion to promote democracy.

In the 21st century cold war between democracy and dictatorship, between the U.S. and China or between people with cell phones and the tanks rolling in, this is a blunder of historic proportions.

 

“If you go to YouTube” in China, you’ll just get a “connection reset” or similar error, and if you go to Youku or Tudou, you’ll probably not find anything on Dara’a – or even very much on jasmines, anymore.

As much as I’d wish for things to be like Friedman suggests, he goes wrong in many ways:

- Social psychology is a bit different in different places. When there is a local grievance, there are “mass incidents” in China, too. They don’t translate into dissatisfaction with the central government (for the most part), though.

- The way Chinese (consumers) will typically see their dignity as bound up in their living standards and the ways other people see them also makes things a bit more difficult. When self-worth is not just based in yourself, but in other’s view of you, you don’t want to stand out quite as much, certainly not in ways widely seen as negative.

- Given the wide use of “China’s twitter,” i.e. different versions of weibo, blogs, BBS, etc., the CCP probably does have a good grip of the pulse of the nation, thanks to online connections. I don’t know if this is the case, but wouldn’t be surprised if there were detailed data on just what people write about – and gets “harmonized” (i.e., censored). Yes, there are increasing problems with people learning more and tensions between e.g. creating employment for graduates, improving standards of living, and not forgetting that environmental protection, food safety, etc. need to be a part of said improving of lives. That said, many people would see enough being better and getting better the way things are going, and not with an uprising. – So, what’s the point of the column?

 

Superb article! After certain level of economic progress, people want dignity and say in the affairs of their govt and then further economic progress. China has already reached that point. If the communist govt is smart, they will begin the true democratization process or it will happen regardless without them. Same holds for Saudi Arabia and others. Lastly, true democracy can never happen without the separation of religion and state and that is a caution to Israel to be secular in laws. Good thing is the world is heading in the right direction, however slowly.

 

“Dignity before bread”? The choice is a no-brainer. For the hungry, the quest for bread comes first. Everything else comes next.

I would like to share with Mr. Friedman a scene from “My Fair Lady,” the 1960s’ popular play and movie, both adpapted from Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion.” A person who has experienced starvation can always relate to that scene. The flower girl Eliza’s father, Alfred Doolittle, offers her to Professor Higgin for 50 British pounds. The shocked phonetics professor’s asks: “Have you no morals, man?” Doolittle’s response: “Can’t afford them, governor.” He goes on to say that the professor also would do the same, if he was poor.

If the starving millions in China don’t demand dignity, it is understandable. What is sickening is that large numbers of those who are well-fed don’t seem to be bothered by the lack of dignity and democracy in their lives.

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