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Pei Xu, Voice of America/Radio Free Asia: "Gregory Fossedal is chairman of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution which studies and encourages the growth of freedom and democracy.... "Mr. Fossedal, you warned in The New York Times last year, or late in 1997, that the People's Republic was moving into a time of political crisis and economic erosion domestically. Now that this prediction appears to be coming true, do you think this accounts for some of the recent unrest in China, and the reaction of the authorities?" Gregory Fossedal, AdTI: "I'm sure it is linked. The government has based its legitimacy, since the early 1980s, on filling the rice bowl and, as well, making room for a growing middle class whose expectations are rising. "Now the economy is more doubtful, as international investors awaken to the fact that this is a one-party power structure, a banking system, and a legal system, all more corrupt than Mexico's in 1994, and close to Russia's in 1998, and far worse than anything seen in Korea or Malaysia. And the government is having to reduce and reverse the process of allowing the middle class greater freedom – partly, paradoxically, due to the absorption of Hong Kong, which Beijing must bring to heel to keep order on the Mainland. Pei Xu: "But the economy is still growing, at least somewhat." Gregory Fossedal: "That is true. But I agree with Wang Xintau, who remarked a few years ago that this regime needs to fear not simply an outright recession, but a reduction of growth say from 12 percent to 8 percent, or 5 percent, he told me at the time. From what we know now about Chinese statistics, and should have known then, we may have been down below 10 percent even as he spoke, and China is surely dropping below 6-7 percent this year. "This, as Tocqueville observed of France, is often the true occasion of revolution – not the great famine, but an unexpected a reversal of the reform process."Pei Xu: "All this implies, somewhat, that China is weakening its economy slumping a bit and its political system less stable, which will put further strains on the country.... Shouldn't this mean China will be less of a threat internationally? Gregory Fossedal: "Unfortunately, it doesn't, for two reasons. First, Chinese military capabilities don't appear to be significantly stressed by the economy. In fact, since military items like technology are a major export, and many other Chinese export industries are directly controlled by the PLA [People's Liberation Army], they're relatively immune from a domestic economic slump. "Second, and more important, it appears to me that the weakness of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes often generates a more aggressive foreign policy, not a gentler one. A regime that isn't filling the rice bowl as well, or meeting people's desire for political freedom, feels more pressure to generate foreign policy results. It also has more need to demonstrate, at home and abroad, that it can get tough. Really, these things go hand in hand. "Has the regime, in fact, been less aggressive during the last 18 months, despite the pressure on the renminbi yuan, the collapse of many of its Asian trading partners, and the lack of a core leader on a par with Deng Xiaoping? It hardly appears so. If anything, there have been newly aggressive exercises around Taiwan, more provocations in the Spratlays, arrests and crackdown at home, and an aggressive indifference toward Western complaints about the spread of nuclear and ballistic capabilities by Beijing." Other topics covered in the interview: -Splits in U.S. popular and elite opinion over China. |
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