The Coronavirus epidemic may yet have contagious effects\nwhich trigger a more underlying threat to the status quo in China. This is\nbecause, since the 1980s, China has had at its heart a contradiction: the edifice\nof its one-party state legitimacy rests upon two greatly contrasting pillars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One pillar is the doctrine of Maoism, essentially communism\nwith peasant characteristics. This remains the underpinning of the Chinese\nCommunist Party\u2019s claim to power. The other pillar is the ever-greater material\nprosperity that has accompanied China\u2019s switch to state directed capitalism and\nits entry into the global economy. Deng Xiaoping famously said of his market\nliberalising reforms: \u201cIt does not matter if a cat is black or white, provided\nthat it catches mice.\u201d Accordingly, the CCP turned its back on the utter\neconomic and social failures of Maoism and embraced free market economics, with\nof course its concomitant social mobility and inequality. The hypocrisy, the\ndivergence between word and deed, is glaring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China\u2019s leaders are as keenly aware as anyone that the\ndelivery of economic well-being and material wealth only fulfils half of what\nhumans need. The other half is the need for recognition, the need for a person\nto feel that their dignity is respected. It is this urge that explained the\nuprisings against state socialism in Eastern Europe and the USSR in the late\n1980s, much more than the economic failures of those states. People protested\nat their infantilization by the regime as much as they did at the bread queues\nand the blackouts. Indeed, these states became vulnerable to such popular\ncriticism partly because their populations were becoming sufficiently educated\nand materially comfortable to become aware that their rulers did not recognise\ntheir human dignity, did not allow them to participate in public and political\nlife, and did not allow them the freedom to make their own moral choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is this same urge for recognition that fired the protesters in Tienanmen Square in 1989. They were crushed, and the political settlement since imposed on China has remained in place ever since. But whilst capitalism may deliver what Chinese people demand materially, the communist system cannot deliver what they need morally. Its hypocrisy is one economic shock away from total exposure. Xi Xinping\u2019s anti-corruption campaigns and cult of personality are an attempt to paper over the ideological cracks. The emerging \u201csocial credit\u201d system \u2013 the use of data analytics and artificial intelligence to control the population \u2013 is the CCP\u2019s pre-emptive repression. The sabre-rattling that sometimes features in Chinese foreign policy is its attempt to divert the people\u2019s restless desires outwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The regime\u2019s terror at the recent Hong Kong protests is hardly down to their scope, but to what they represent. They are a direct challenge to the notion that the Chinese are inherently different from the rest of the world because of their Confucian and Legalist traditions; in other words that political obedience and social stability are dearer to the heart of the Chinese people than meaningful individual freedom and dignity \u2013 the very dignity and freedom which Hong Kong\u2019s liberal democracy has for decades conferred upon its Chinese citizens. The \u201cOne Country, Two Systems\u201d arrangement for Hong Kong has within it the germ which may yet cause a political pandemic on the mainland. And the situation in Hong Kong is hitting China at its nodal link with the global economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If this Hong Kong crisis or other crises (perhaps a trade war\nwith the USA, or perhaps the Coronavirus outbreak) mean that China\u2019s growth\nmiracle comes to an abrupt halt, then the emperor\u2019s new clothes \u2013 the old\nclothes of Maoism \u2013 will be seen for what they are, namely nothing more than a\nmoribund foundation myth justifying a corrupt and authoritarian hierarchy that\nhas no right to dictate the fine details of every person\u2019s life and moral\nchoices. That could lead to \u201cturmoil\u201d, a rough translation of what any Chinese\ngovernment most fears: the loss of state legitimacy and power, and a period of\nchronic crisis. Ultimately, the colour of the cat matters after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"