China - democracy in Africa “the root of disaster”
BRUSSELS — The publication of this article in the People’s Daily caused an interesting ripple of reactions, not least in Africa itself. Although China professes ideological neutrality in its foreign policy, its officials and a number of Chinese intellectuals are still eager to leap on any evidence that ‘Western-style democracy’ is ‘unsuitable’ in any number of places, whether Taiwan – where many claim democracy has brought ‘chaos’ – the Middle East, Russia, and now Africa. While the article does not represent the official position of the Chinese government, its appearance in the Chinese Communist Party’s leading publication certainly implies a level of official sympathy for Li Xinfeng’s view.
China has moved some way in its policies towards the world’s worst regimes – the manifestly unsuccessful autocracies such as Burma, North Korea, and Zimbabwe – which its diplomats quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, push towards political and economic reform. But it cannot be anticipated that this shift will continue to a point where China is like-minded in its approach to dealing with the less clear-cut cases. Failing democracies and successful autocracies still provide China with an external source of legitimacy for its own domestic political system, and senior Party officials are heavily conditioned in their international outlook by their own experiences in maintaining CCP rule. It is difficult to foresee active Chinese support for shoring up fragile democracies such as Kenya or facilitating efforts to exert pressure on would-be democracies such as Pakistan. U.S. and European policymakers, even as they develop dialogues with China on Africa (and elsewhere), need to look hard at how much convergence of views they can realistically expect. Across a number of fields – whether supporting economic development or heading off the risks of acute instability and conflict – there is potentially a great deal, but in other respects China is likely to remain a ‘values competitor’ as well as just an economic one.
The view that China will become the unequivocal backer of dictatorships across the globe at least has the virtue of simplicity and clarity – as does the view that China will see its interests moving ever closer to those of Western democracies. But there is every sign that the reality will be a great deal messier – and the task for policymakers in the West that much more complicated.