West suffers needlessly from ‘ China Syndrome’
What will China eventually become? Will China be able to fulfill Western expectations? Will China be a destructive or constructive world power? Carry the status- quo or become revisionist? A force for continuity or a force for change? Today, the world is witnessing an interesting phenomenon. The Western world in general, and the US in particular, is suffering from the “China Syndrome” in the context of China’s global rise.
The “China Syndrome” refers to a set of symptoms characterized by psychological anxiety, emotional hysteria and expressive demonization. In recent years in Western media and academia, the coverage of China can be characterized either by exaggerated prophecy of China’s threatening rise to the superpower status, or by unwarranted forecast of “the coming collapse of China.” or by doomed prediction about “the endgame of Communist rule in China.”
Today, there is widespread anxiety in the West that China is on its way to become one of the dominant powers in the world order. The West longed for an expected “liberal China” or an imagined “West- like China” shaped by globalization, marketization and westernization. But their fantasy has been driven into despair.
The West’s unease is understandable. But what are the essential causal factors that built up the West’s anxiety? China’s economic competitiveness and technological advance are not the essence of the problems in China- West relationships. After all, the West has been benefitting from China’s economic rise. Also, China is emerging to become the largest consumer market for Western products. Rather, the West’s anxiety toward China is caused by the fact that the outcome of China’s economic success and its modernization process do not conform to a set of belief paradigms in the West derived from the historical evolution of European modernization. These paradigms prophesize a number of presumed causal relationships.
The first is the “modernization paradigm.” It believes that liberal democracy is an unavoidable outcome of economic modernization caused by the forces of secularization, individualism and liberalism. The second is the “middle class paradigm.” It claims that the middle class is the agent of liberal democracy; and liberal democracy is an inevitable consequence brought about by the rise of middle class based interest groups. This leads to pluralism and multiparty competition. The third is the “political authoritarianism paradigm.” It teaches that economic underdevelopment is caused ed by political authoritarianism’s m’s lack of freedom and free flow of ideas, which leads to a lack of innovation and upward ard mobility.
These hese paradigms ms were e seemingly mingly vindicated icated by the he end of the Cold War, an analogy nalogy to the triumph mph of Western liberal ral hegemony and market ket capitalism. Since then, n, the “end of history” of the Western belief system has been n seen as per definition the truth. h I It i is viewed i d as natural l law for humanity’s common destiny.
Ironically, China’s global rise for the past four decades has not led the country toward a Western style liberal democracy. The Chinese middle class has not really become the “agent of liberal democracy” as the West always anticipates. A most obvious paradox is the fact that the “Chinese authoritarianism” coined by the West has transformed the country from one of the world’s poorest countries into the world’s second- largest economy.
The Harvard University’s findings indicate that Chinese citizen satisfaction with government has increased virtually across the board. This satisfaction is largely based on the improvement that the Chinese
government has made in three key areas: social security, anticorruption and environmental protection.
The essence of the West’s China Syndrome can be traced to the “loss of China” sentiment. Historically, the “loss of China” took its initial shape in 1949. The wishful thinking about the imminent transformation of China into a Western- like democratic, capitalist nation has evaporated.
During the 1950s, America experienced “McCarthyism,” a term characterized by heightened political repression and a campaign spreading fear of communist influence on American institutions and of espionage.
Do we see a similar situation of McCarthyism in the US today? Let’s see: redu reducing the number of Chinese media and journalists, banning Chinese students from choos choosing certain areas of education, accusing Huawei for “national securi security” concrete threat without e evidence, cl closing do down Confuciu cius Institute for avoiding avoid “Chinese political influence,” and demonizing C China for dealing with its internal inte affairs, attempting to r restore an anti- China international internati coalition, etc. Sounds pre pretty China paranoid, id d doesn’t ’ i it? ? China now finds itself to be a “middle kingdom” surrounded by multiple sentiments of jealousy, admiration, anxiety, worry and even resentment. Within the near future, China as the rising power and the West as the established power will have to find ways to accept each other. In order to do so, both sides will have to go through a considerable period of struggle, tension, adjustment and accommodation.
Li Xing is a professor with Department of Politics and Society, Aalborg University, Denmark, and Peng Bo is an assistant researcher with Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. opinion@ globaltimes. com. cn