I’m writing an e-book about French democracy, and it’s not the first time I’ve wondered if I got the country. Often in recent months, I felt like I deserved to have scribbled about America or the UK, but now the unrest is escalating ambitiously in Iran, and then, surprisingly, we have the maximum political, widespread and angry outbreak of protests across China. It might be too ambitious to say that the democratic recession is coming to an end or has bottomed out, however a “spring” in autocratic countries would be a welcome development, provided it ends well (note that 15 of the 16 countries in the ’16’ World Cup finals are democracies).
Having crowned himself leader for “a long time” and triggering a one-man party transition, Xi Jinping’s arrogance may have been greater (see a previous “The Red Curtain”), and now his resignation has not been easily interrupted by the public.
After two simple years while the rest of the world suffered greatly, China is now mired in COVID, amid autocratic and brutal government repression. In some respects, I had few options. Chinese vaccines are as effective as Western vaccines and a large number of elderly Chinese have gained a booster vaccine.
China also lacks the public fitness infrastructure of the West. It has, according to capital, one-seventh of the nurses that Germany has, and one-tenth of Germany’s “emergency” hospital beds (however, life expectancy in China has exceeded that of the US). This year, still far from the EU). It may not be able to cope with a public health emergency: By the criteria of how the US has dealt with COVID, China could suffer just four million deaths, or 2. 3 million using Taiwan as a benchmark. In this sense, a serious lockdown makes sense.
What’s new is that the lockdown has given the majority of the Chinese population a bitter one.
autocracy. In some cases, factory staff have been treated in a way that makes Oliver Twist testing look like a luxury vacation. Since the lockdown cannot end without delay and will have to last until spring one way or another, there are two very vital days. -term questions that want to be answered.
The first is whether the manifestation of Xi Jinping’s autocratic strategy breaks the patience of other Chinese and the contract between others and the state (CCP). The second, and related, is whether autocracy is bad for productivity, and if so, China hits the productivity wall and backs down. In my opinion, in the grand scheme of the strategic festival between China and the United States, this is a much more vital factor than an imaginable invasion of Taiwan.
China’s expansion is slowing and, like many other countries, may simply be in recession. More tellingly, its trend expansion rate has fallen particularly (3%) and given demographic deterioration, higher productivity is the only resource for further expansion. That’s why autocracy is a problem.
To analyze educational cadres in this area, autocracy and emerging productivity would likely go hand in hand in the early emerging economies, but as the other trajectories of North and South Korea show, the progress of strong institutions and, potentially, democracy will pay a high economic price. cost. dividend.
There is sufficient evidence that political instability or abrupt and negative adjustments in the quality of institutions can affect productivity. Turkey is another clever example of a dirty-rich economy reduced through deepening autocracy and corruption.
At the other end of the spectrum, the most productive and cutting-edge economies are always countries (e. g. the Nordic countries, Ireland, Switzerland) with institutional and democratic “quality”. They represent open economies and open societies.
Now cracks are beginning to appear in the Chinese model. The fact that Jack Ma only sits in Tokyo suggests that there are limits to business leadership in China. Real estate and shadow banking are under pressure, and China’s disconnect from the rest of the world (diplomatically, flows of people) are just some of the points that will hold back innovation, risk-taking and productivity in China.
Any discussion of a “rise” in China is ill-conceived and, likewise, Taiwan’s position is not basic to China’s progress. However, if it needs a dominant power, its economy will have to expand structurally, and this is where autocracy may be the biggest impediment. Faces of China.