I've been reading the book
"The Wise Men", by
Walter Isaacson and
Evan Thomas (pub. Simon & Schuster, 2013 [first pub. 1986], ISBN 978-1-4391-2653-0; Amazon, Simon & Schuster), which covers a group of six men of varied background who had significant roles in establishing what is described as "the New World Order" after World War (part) Two. Although their influence didn't include the United Nations, it did include the promotion of an
"internationalist" foreign policy, implementation of the
Bretton Woods systems, the
Truman Doctrine, the
Marshall Plan,
strategy in the
Korean War (it was concerning to see the extent that the rabid McCarthy's influence had on the catastrophic decision to cross into North Korea), and sundry other matters, including the concept of "
containing the USSR"
(see also here).
The containment of Russia approach came initially from
George Kennan, and, written in what I would describe as a period of personal despair, was likely more
hawkish than intended; after the "pragmatist" interpretation of this concept led to a military-focused approach to containing the USSR, Kennan became quite active as a "
dove".
Irrespective of that, what interests me about the containment philosophy is the important notion of strengthening democracy
(see here, here, here, and here for some interesting sites on that) as a containment of the threat of totalitarianism. That is something I agree with
(on my main blog, I have often mentioned "how do you outflank an idea?", and strengthening democracy as a counter to totalitarianism is an example of that).
This morning's speculation is: how can this concept be applied to Chinese Communist Party's totalitarianism, if at all?
Now, the are some major differences between considering approaches to Chinese Communist totalitarianism, and the totalitarianism of the USSR
(note: I liked most of the people I worked with when I was in China [as an engineer] and Viêt Nám, which will come up later: just as with the "wise men", the concerns are with the totalitarian governance, not the people):
- The concerns Kennan, Bohlen, and Harriman had with the USSR were founded on Russia's history of expansionism (Russia was originally west of the Urals, and reached as far east, ultimately, as Alaska) and the paranoia of Russia/USSR - based
(a) partly on history, with invasions including the Mongols from the south in the early 1200s and the Poles from the west in the early 1600s, as well as the more widely known invasions by Napoleonic France in 1812 and Germany in 1915 (after Russian attacks in 1914) and 1941, and paranoia as a trait in leaders going back to at least Ivan IV,
(b) partly on politics - especially the internal politics of totalitarianism in general, and the Russian communist party in particular (Kennan foresaw the signs of the USSR when he wrote his articles that led to containment).
China, on the other hand, seems to me to be largely wanting to reclaim her historic preeminence after a couple of centuries of devastation forcibly imposed by Western nations.
- Russia / the USSR and China both have had historic problems of oppression of their people (before and after revolutions), but so too have western nations. Western nations, however, have had a history of activism on political and other human rights, beginning with the Magna Carta, that culminated (in my opinion), centuries later and after many twists, turns and developments, in the creation of the United Nations.
The Russian history of political activism was a complex and active intellectual field that included Leo Tolstoy, who missed out on three nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize (and six consecutive nominations for the Nobel Literature Prize), but helped inspire the work and non-violent approach of Gandhi, who led India to independence.
In Russia, after
(1) a constitutional monarchy established in 1905 in response to losing a war against Japan's competing imperial expansionism in the east and a violently suppressed revolution;
(2) a bloody civil war (with the re and White armies, western forces invading - from the north, for a change in compass point of concern - in support of the Whites, and various "Green" armies - nothing to do with the environment, more "peasant" forces who were probably closer to what Marx wanted . . . ) which followed the revolution which overthrew the republic established after Tsar Nicholas II abdicated;
the Bolsheviks came to power, and the USSR came into being.
Russia had a significant intellectual power - I don't know if that was enough to match the French and Anglo philosophers of the Enlightenment, but it was significant, so . . . why didn't Russia also go down the democratic political development? Monarchs in the West were also absolute - Elizabeth I's network of spies has been characterised as "the first surveillance network" - and violent (e.g., here), so why was Russia different? A preponderance of character types? Or is that just a lazy way of accounting for cultural, economic, and other influences? I'll have to look into that one day, beginning with re-reading Masha Gessen's "The Future is History" (pub. Riverhead Books, New York, 2017, ISBN 978-1-59463-3).
China also has had a strong, and even less well recognised in the West, history of human rights style development. That history was probably best exemplified and illustrated by P.C. Chang, who had such a key role in the formulation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. From my post here:
P. C. Chang, China’s (pre-Communist) representative to the group which developed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights often reminded other participants of
China’s long history on human rights matters, and, in response to UNESCO’s world-wide
survey of matters which are accepted as being a human right, Mary Ann Glendon, in "A World Made New" (Random House, 2002, ISBN 978-0679463108), writes:
The absence of a formal declaration of rights in China,
said Confucian philosopher Chung-Shu Lo, did not signify “that the Chinese
never claimed human rights or enjoyed the basic rights of man.” He explained
. . . the idea of human rights developed very
early in China, and the right of the people to revolt against oppressive rulers
was very early established. . . . A great Confucianist, Mencius (372 –
289 BC), strongly maintained that a government should work for the will of the
people. He said: “People are of primary importance. The State is of less
importance. The sovereign is of least importance.”
Clearly, the right to revolt against
oppressors has been exercised a few times in China (and, much as the USA ignored the Philippines success in throwing off
the yoke of Spanish imperialism in 1898, overlooked in other nations). In
fact, it was quite possibly fairly widespread discontent against the corruption
and excesses of the Kuomintang that helped the rise of the Communists in the
late 1940s.
- The revolutions in Russia and China are widely considered to have came out of a widespread poverty that, to some extent, didn't exist - to the same extent - in the West.
However, Russia had already industrialised to an extent under the Tsars, and some reforms had been introduced, but workplace conditions and inequality (see here - I have not found a final version of the article) appears to have been an issue in some places (the problems and the benefits appear to have been unevenly spread across Russia), and social awareness of the need for more effective reform was a key factor in the 1905 revolution. Later, in the lead up to the 1917 revolutions, World War (part) One had also had a devastating impact on the lives of everyday Russians. The first few decades of totalitarianism were a mixture of agricultural disaster and industrial development (some of which included relocating industry to Siberia, which was of benefit to the USSR when attacked by Germany in 1941), but all of that was set back by the purges of the late 20s and the 30s, and the war with Germany. What then subsumed all else was the Cold War, with an enforced military development at the expense of quality of life. When the external threat disappeared, so did the USSR - for a range of reasons.
China had an even more severe problem around poverty, and that, combined with the lack of an active external threat of the type the USSR faced, possibly resulted in China's focus being on internal matters for many decades (and China has made an outstanding reduction in poverty rates).
(On the other hand, India had a major problem with poverty through this era, and still does, yet it did not turn to Marxism/Communism. Perhaps different culture- both pre-British invasion and occupation, and after - and the influence of Gandhi?)
- However, just as the USSR considered the status of "flank" (also termed "sacrificial protection") nations like Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States, etc as matters of their "internal" concern - notwithstanding that the nations are now free and independent, so too does China's concerns extend into what can be termed "border" disputes with Japan, questionable invasions to the west and south west, and further afield in to the South China Sea.
Moving on from historical background to now, from an international perspective, I consider the concerns associated with China are:
- the anti-democratic influence of China's soft power, although that is, I consider, probably more motivated by China's desire to "Make China Great Again" than any desire to export Communism;
- China's apparent unbuckling of economic wellbeing and freedom, by providing improved material conditions under what is effectively a surfeit of thought control;
- the potentially pernicious influence of China's use of economic power (loans have to be repaid, grants don't, and repayment for a small economy is difficult - China's aid is not an Asian version of the Marshall Plan, nor is it's Belt and Road Initiative);
- the unresolved problems around the independent nation of Taiwan, the invaded nation of Tibet, and the quasi-autonomous territory of Hong Kong;
- the unresolved border disputes (see here and here) with Japan; and
- China's expansionist aims on the South China Sea, which is based on claims relating to matters as far back as the 3rd Century BCE (the infamous nine dash line used to be an eleven dash line under the Kuomintang).
The first point of resolution for items no. 4 to 6 is international law:
- the cases of Tibet and Taiwan are unlikely to ever be submitted for consideration, and the stupidity of too many Westerners around Tibet's independence (as I see it, they kicked China out in 1911 or so, just as the USA did with Great Britain in the 1770s) and Taiwan's history as Formosa makes such measures unlikely to succeed. Ironically, I understand that the 17 point agreement, signed under duress and later repudiated, has been used to fight the Chinese genocide in Tibet;
- Hong Kong, occupied illegally (in my - inexpert - opinion: it hasn't been tested in a court, and I haven't bothered doing an internet search on this) as part of the fallout of the appalling Opium Wars, has been dumped carelessly, without a well-established democratic system and traditions despite more than a century of British (racist) rule, back in hands of China, with a cultural clash that is due to be ended, possibly without peaceful resolution, in 2047;
- the South China Sea matter - as far as it relates to the Philippines - has been referred to arbitration, and China's claims were rejected;
- the other matters in the South China Sea have not been referred to arbitration.
Incidentally, it is . . . "curious" how, no matter how pretty the language is that they are dressed up in, many of these border disputes involve oil and/or gas fields, not to mention more "mundane" resources such as fish - recalling China's need to feed the largest population in the world.
So, what else?
In most cases, I consider there is no need for military preparedness beyond the usual need for a nation to be able to defend itself in this still imperfect world
(and Viêt Nám, incidentally, has a good history of defence against China, having thrown them out for the first time nearly two millennia ago). However, there are two points to make here:
- Taiwan lives in a state of peril that is significant (not comparable to that of Israel, but still significant - and both need to continue to exist); and
- there appears to have been an inability of the other nations involved in China's South China Sea dispute to take reasonable measures against early Chinese actions - such as scouring out sandbanks, attacking their fishing boats, etc.
Taiwan is walking a tightrope - politically and militarily, and wise leadership is needed. Democracy needs to be strengthened, as one of the major problems in
South Viêt Nám and
South Korea in the 1950s, 60s and 70s was the West, led by the USA, putting faith in despots whose abuses demotivated their nations' people, including the military, and allowed or encourage abuses at all levels of society.
Strengthening political institutions to support freedom and democracy is a worthy aim in itself
(and addresses points 1 and 3 listed above), but when nations are at risk, including Taiwan, there is an even greater benefit of doing so.
With regard to the Philippines lack of coastguard/naval action against Chinese damage to disputed shoals, there are probably two aspects worth considering:
(a) ensuring the democracy is strong (there is a strong insurgency in the south, and Duterte is doing massive damage to his nation's democracy in much the same way as POTUS45 is to the USA's); and
(b) ensuring that the Philippines has adequate naval and coastguard resources (keeping in mind that Philippines is an archipelago with more than 7,000 islands and more than 36,000 km of coastline, [Indonesia has more than 50,000 islands]).
Now, the issue of adequate military resources on that applies to Taiwan as well, and the only sources that could provide adequate help there are the USA, and
possibly the European Union. With regard to the Philippines, however, ensuring adequate naval or coastguard type resources is a more limited scope, and could be catered for by a range of nations
- including mine,
Australia.
- Much as we transferred 12 of the superceded Attack class patrol boats to PNG and Indonesia in the 1980s, can we safely - given the damage Duterte is doing to democracy - and reasonably transfer some of our current Armidale-class patrol boats when they are superceded to improve the ability to take action on a small scale?
- Also, is there a need for training of Philippines naval personnel or boosting of their logistical capabilities to enable this? Such would not only potentially aid in current actions against the insurgency and maybe against illegal Chinese actions (there are escalation issues to consider now, given recent Chinese construction activity on the islands), but also in containment of criminal activity. The problem here is that we have such an appalling history on training nations that are human rights abusers - as we did with the old Kopassus, which committed such terrible atrocities in East Timor, and as we appear to still be doing with the genocidal burmese.
The key aspect here, from my point of view, is that the Philippines democracy is currently being degraded through a number of actions, including attacks on human rights, so providing military capability is fraught with risks and thus probably unwise.
Viêt Nám, of course, is not democratic: she is a communist authoritarian nation that is, as with China,
playing with economic reform under the umbrella of a thought control regime.
Indonesia has been
moving towards a
democracy - albeit undermined by human rights problems, particularly the religious bigotry in Aceh - but moving, nevertheless, and for a couple of decades now.
(Indonesia has more than a 100 million voters; in the 2019 election, hundreds of election officials died.) Of those nations involved in the South China Seas tensions, I'm fairly confident about democracy in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, but I'm not when it comes to the Philippines.
So how can we build capacity in a way that will enhance democracy and freedom, and also aid in containing China's expansionist actions, without harming any future prospects for freedom and democracy in China? Freedom and democracy will happen eventually in China, as the current thought control is actually making it impossible to draw properly on the inventiveness, perspicacity, and other resources of the Chinese people. That restriction of access to resources is a key and inherent problem of all authoritarian regimes - from badly run businesses all the way up to imperial and totalitarian regimes.
As mentioned in point no. 2 above, China
appears to have unbuckled economic development and freedom, by improving living standards, while actively working to suppress freedom of thought. Thus, a middle class is developing, but there is not much demand for freedom - as was expected by many of us in the West
(including me).
However, I'm not entirely convinced of that unbuckling as yet. Change takes around three generations to become permanent, which means China has had long enough to establish Communist Party systems, but the unbuckling causing angst in sections of the West is relatively new, associated with Chairperson Xi. Much as Mao's excesses and programmes were undone and reversed to a significant extent by
Deng (although the Tiananmen Square Massacre happened "under his watch"), it is possible that Xi's successor may introduce changes and those will happen before the three generations under the latest changes has occurred.
More importantly,
dissent has not stopped in China. It has become harder to be a dissenter, but there are still courageous people working to better the human rights conditions of the Chinese people - and they should be admired, respected and venerated just as much as any Soviet dissident ever was.
Putting aside for the moment the issue of acheiving political freedom in China, one of the aspects I suspect if happening in China as people attain material wealth is a desire for security - they are more likely to term it "law and order", but it is basically about the desire to be able to accumulate possessions without the risk of theft or other loss
(e.g., as a result of being made a political scapegoat). And that can be built on.
Respect for rule of law is a fundamental basis for democracy to be built on: thus, build a corruption-free way of providing law and order, build a respect for proper and effective policing and justice, and you are contributing to something that can be useful for freedom later. In China, the key is to change the perception that police and courts are only for enforcing political thought control. When the people of China can use courts for their personal benefit
(and i am fairly clearly expecting that this will be around ensuring material gain), you have planted a seed for changing their acquiescence in the current misuse of the "justice" system for power. There are, incidentally, also trials for crimes such as murder
(and some human rights abuses covered under existing laws); I'm just not convinced that the police are effective in investigating such matters, which means that failure to punish the correct offender, and miscarriages of justice, will build the sort of discontent that is currently seen in matters such as the
contaminated milk powder scandal.
(The powerful reaction to what was happening to their children should, I hope, convince any "confused thinkers", I'll term them, of how the Chinese share the same essential humanity as other people.)
From a regional perspective, rule of law is being compromised in the Philippines - in fact, it is being replaced by despotic, arbitrary, thuggish violence and murder.
That's not good for anyone - including, in the long term, those who are suffering from the drug problems: innocent people have already been murdered by police, and that problem will only continue to get worse. As everyday people realise that, discontent will grow.
Of course, the initial drug problem was significant as well, and the victims include those who are robbed, assaulted and murdered by addicts. There is a tendency to view drug addicts as victims, and forget about the harm they do, so measures to address drug addiction
- the medium term cure - also need to be combined with short term measures to keep other people safe, and that is where a
genuinely improved police capability could be beneficial.
(The long term cure is changing social conditions so people do not desire drugs - which means secure jobs, adequate pay, no child or domestic abuse, and a sense of purpose and/or hope which includes freedom. At the present, I consider life for most people in the world is worse than when we humans were gatherer-hunters, and that is wrong.) I would
like to be able to argue here is
"let's provide aid (equipment and maybe training) to boost the capability of police", but there are problems of corruption to be addressed first.
So, where I'm at so far on this is:
(i) building respect for rule of law can be a "toe in the door" for democracy / freedom, and for peaceful resolution of international disputes;
(ii) to help build that respect, first fix corruption (there are experts making appropriate recommendations on that);
(iii) boost capability of police and justice systems in a way that boosts cultural respect for the rule of law (this does not mean "allow police to parade their good opinion of themselves": it needs to address security and safety, and educate people how a justice system is slow and thorough, but creates an atmosphere where violence and crime are less likely);
(iv) where appropriate, strengthen democratic institutions.
Now, in the case of Viêt Nám, they would possibly be open to suggestion (iii), seeing it as having parallels to their desire to have "respect" for the authoritarian government.
Provided they also addressed corruption, that would be aid I would support.
The aim of this is to create an atmosphere where most people in that nation - or any nation being so aided - would automatically want and support action such as international arbitration when they are wronged. If they can see that, in the long term, everyday people benefit by having a proper justice system, I consider they're in position to extrapolate that to the interaction of nations - especially if they're in a smaller nation, but people in bigger nations also can learn that lesson
(as is shown by some of the activism in the USA, for instance). Getting that support to last through adverse decisions is a challenge, but that challenge applies in western nations as well, and can be done with patience and persistence, and starting small.
Once that is acheived in the nations bordering the South China Sea, China's aggressiveness would hopefully be viewed as something to be resisted through lawful means - and it would be seen as something that
should be resisted.
In the long term, that would be a good seed that could later help the growth of democracy, but the current approaches to strengthening democratic institutions should probably continue wherever possible.
(I need to do more research - beyond the links above - on what those measures are . . . ah, to have more time . . . )
China should continue to be engaged and treated respectfully, and we should express our concerns openly and honestly. Also, when mainland Chinese students come to Australia, they should be told we similarly expect them to obey our laws
(and violent assaults are banned; this also applies to Australians in China) and meet our expectations, including allowing free speech: the price for studying here is not only monetary, it is also the expectation of manners
(again, this also applies to Australians in China, in my opinion).
I'm going to end with a comment about addressing one's own problems.
Back in the 80s, I used to write a lot of letters for Amnesty International. We didn't get a lot of replies, but one that I did came back from China, challenging me for writing about their detention of someone when Australia abused our indigenous people. I replied saying that human rights problems needed to be addressed wherever they occurred, thanked them for offering to help, and gave them to addresses and titles of people to write to in support of indigenous rights. I also followed that up asking how they were going with that letter, but heard nothing further.
It
is important to address injustice everywhere - as the great Dr Martin Luther King. Jr. said:
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
As individuals, we should never deny wrongdoing by our nations. If challenged, I suggest agreeing with the charge, and invite the challenger to join in the struggle the right the wrong they are evidently aware of.
We also can, as individuals, urge our nations to act decently, and use the political vulnerability create by not doing so as an argument for acting decently. One of the arguments that apparently convinced
former US President Reagan to ratify the
Genocide Convention (on 25th November, 1988, after having signed the Convention in 1948) was the fact that the USSR kept throwing the US refusal to ratify back in their faces when the US was trying to negotiate about whatever human rights abuses the Soviets had just committed.
Like so many things in life, decency is a double edged sword: we get held to the standards we expect others to hold to.
And I think that is a good thing.
I've written on this topic previously. See:
In addition, there have been some interesting articles published this week on this topic:
I'm going to leave this at that for now - it's taken up most of the day (partly tracking down some of the links, but I've also had some housework to do). I may come back and polish it in a few days, if I have time - I'd love to have had a week to do this properly, but I still need a day job.
PS - an interesting news article on Zheng He ads another view to this matter.
