In response to a rather pious lecture from US Deputy Secretary of State, Robert Zoellick, Asia Times Online yesterday ran a very interesting editorial that raises the question of whether western-style liberal democracy is at all relevant in a society that in the midst of the largest migration and transformation in recorded history. The article's point is that the Chinese government's necessarily first and only priority is to successfully manage this transition, and that is must be done before the question of democracy can even be considered. This argument is wrapped around a fascinating look at the implications of China's massive urban migration, and how this is eroding the rural population that has long been the force for convulsive change in China:
[China] must learn to rule cities that are mushrooming into the largest urban concentrations the world has ever known, populated by poor migrants speaking various dialects. By far the largest popular migration in history is in flow tide between the Chinese countryside and coastal cities. In the mere span of five years between 1996 and 2000, China's urban-rural population ratio rose to 36%-64% from 29%-71%, and the UN Population Division projects that by 2050, the ratio will shift to 67%-33% urban. Chinese cities, the UN forecasts, will contain 800 million people by mid-century. By 2015, the population of cities will reach 220 million, compared to the 1995 level of 134 million.

Well over half a billion souls will migrate from farm to city over the space of half a century. All of them will be quite poor. China claims 80% literacy, but as countryside reads less than the city, it is a fair guess that a third of the migrants will be illiterate, and many of them, again perhaps a third, will not be able to understand a political speech in Mandarin, the largest dialect. No historical precedent exists for a population transfer on this scale, and to conduct it peacefully would be a virtuoso act of statecraft. To require China to adopt a Western parliamentary regime in the process is utopian.
The article goes on to look at some of the societal prerequisites for democracy, many of which are conspicuous by their absence from China.

All those points are good. One of the great prejudices of Americans is that our style of liberal democracy must be good for everyone, since it has worked out so well for us. China hand and roving consultant David Wolf, who sent me this article, said to me, "It's about time somebody stood up and said 'sorry, but China don't eat donuts, and they won't swallow our political system either.'"

It's a fair point, I concede that village level elections are a sham and that a western-style full parliamentary democracy or Jeffersonian republic may not be the answer for China, now or ever. But in between the utopian vision of full democracy and the tight grip of the CCP, might there not be a middle ground featuring a government that is more open, tolerant of dissent and receptive of public involvement?

To accept the current situation as the best answer for China now is to tack awfully close to the dismal and depressing "not ready for democracy" argument that is so often advanced by those who have a deep interest in preserving the status quo. There is never a good time for democracy, and the need for an authoritarian state now tends to blur into a hazy and indeterminate future.

But to reject the status quo while accepting Asia Times' arguments is to beg the difficult question of what, then, might be the right government for China now?

Thanks to David Wolf for the article.