The Arab Revolutions Should Scare China, a Lot

As I write this, the ultimate outcome of the revolutionary fervor sweeping the Arab world has yet to reach a clear outcome. But from Mauritania to Oman, a clear tide of political, economic, and social discontent has swept regimes long presumed invulnerable to such forces. Most observers, if asked to pick a Middle Eastern state liable to revolution, would have gone with Iran or perhaps Lebanon. Few would have imagined that in just a handful of weeks, protest movements could oust the authoritarian Arab Nationalist strongmen of Tunisia and Egypt. For external participants, these events threaten to undermine long-standing diplomatic relations. Israel and the US fret that the entire system of pro-Western Arab leaders now teeters on the brink of collapse and with it a generation’s worth of foreign policy calculations. Yet for another nation, the threat is not merely strategic but in the precedent these uprisings have set. That nation is China, and if Hu Jintao is not scared yet, he should be.

When comparing China and the Arab states, the similarities can seem foreboding. They are politically closed and authoritarian. To the extent that some Arab nations allow elections, they are typically entirely fraudulent. China, despite periodic discussions of reform, allows only stage-managed elections at the local level and nothing more. In Beijing as in pre-revolutionary Egypt, the legislature is a rubber stamp for decisions made by political elites. There is no meaningful way for people to enter the political process except by joining the repressive and corrupt elite class. China has a vast and powerful secret police network which monitors and represses any sign of dissidence. In 1989, China made clear its willingness to use violence against the people, as tanks rolled through Tiananmen Square to end demonstrations there. To the extent that Arab states and China are relatively de-personalized dictatorships, they exhibit not rule of law but rule by law, where the power monopoly of the elite must never be questioned.

Economically, they suffer from similar problems. China has a distorted labor market where internal migration is heavily regulated and many peasant migrants find themselves trapped on the margins of urban society, effectively rendering them illegal immigrants in their own country. Growing numbers of Chinese college graduates either cannot get a job or find that their education is unsatisfactory for the professional employment they covet. The job market can be heavily politicized, with connections and patronage the only truly reliable route to easy job security. At the top, the elite meddle in economic activity and no one is allowed to grow too rich without paying their dues to the party. China’s biggest tycoons live in Hong Kong for a reason. These are all features that characterized Tunisia and Egypt as the discontents of a corrupted, fragmented economy rose up against their oppressors.

Perhaps most concerning are ideological similarities. Though founded in 1949 in the name of Communism, the People’s Republic of China has become a thoroughly non-ideological state. Under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping from the late 70s through early 90s, China undertook broad economic, political and social reform that created the global power we know today. It also stripped the state of ideological substance. Deng, a pragmatist to his core, was results-focused and unconcerned with dogma. Communism as conventionally practiced has been junked, and nothing has ever taken its place. The Arab world is divided between two sets of similarly ideologically barren regimes. First are the Arab Nationalist Authoritarians, presidents who came to power as members of heirs of an early revolutionary surge. Their promises of economic transformation and modernization and the victory of the Arab peoples against enemies and foreign interference have long since rung hollow. On the other hand are the monarchies, who utilized tribal relations and peasant awe to legitimize the ruling families. The relentless march of technology and social change has upended these beliefs, shredding the rationale for birthright rule.

In the absence of ideological arguments and with the uprisings in the Arab world shredding the hegemonic notion that the people could not defeat the authoritarian state, only economic performance survives as a means of legitimization. No matter how they tried, most Arab states have never been able to provide comprehensive economic benefits for the mass of citizenry. Even the rentier states of the Gulf hide vast underclasses beneath their glistening prosperity. Central planning and neo-liberal reform alike have failed to provide substantial improvement at the median. China is different. For all the flaws of the Chinese economy, it has provided thirty years of reliable growth in living standards for large numbers of Chinese. While those left behind are a growing mass, the current leadership in China is still able to provide expanding opportunities for much of their vast population. For now that may be enough. What pushed the Arab states over the edge was a situation where no meaningful segment of society still benefited from the status quo. Only the elite itself stood to lose from a revolution. So long as China sports 10% growth rates, the PRC will find its defenders, and no Jasmine Revolution will reach Beijing.

But nothing lasts forever. Economics has gravity, and China’s growth rates must eventually fall to earth. The Chinese government will eventually have to deal with the mounting discontents of its current trajectory. On that day the people of China may rise up and demand a new and better deal, for while the state has lost ideological substance, the people have not. When the gloss comes off the economy, the people may decide they have had enough of being told what to do by a corrupted elite. The elite will then have to decide on one of two paths: they can replay the tape from 1989 and hope they still have the means to affect mass violent repression, or they can give the people true reform. The first course leads to North Korea and a country that China’s leaders decided years ago they did not want to lead. The latter may result in the government’s extinction and the painful birth of democracy in the Middle Kingdom. One day, the ghosts of Tiananmen Square may be exorcised by those of Tahrir.