Note: In this article I will be using the terms “West” and “Free World” interchangeably. These are very loaded terms, so here is what I mean by them. The Free World is the collection of countries which are at least mostly organised along liberal democratic lines. These are countries which are more democratic than not, have more free speech than not, are more free-market than not, and have competing centres of power. This list is somewhat fuzzy, and whilst some members like Canada or France are fully representative, others hover on the edge, sometimes falling in or out. Crucially the “West” I describe is not cultural, ethnic or geographic, as amongst its most important members are places like Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, alongside France, the UK and the U.S.A.
In recent years, many in the “West’s” political circles have been deeply worried about the future of the Free World and whether it will rise to meet the challenges of a country like China.
We in the Free World see the growing intensity of the culture wars growing around us. There are riots in the street championing an ideology that says that the West is the cause of all the world’s problems. There are children who grow up believing they won’t have a future due to climate change, university students who seem unbelievably fragile, economic disruption, fake news, dodgy elections, a falling birth rate, and a thousand other calamities, and we think gloomily that perhaps the time of the Free World is over.
The number of articles that have attacked the “neo-liberal world order” or the “age of liberalism” and declared it dead could fill many volumes. People from all across the political spectrum look towards countries like China and see many things they admire. Left-wing technocrats see a society which is decisive and long-term focused, where great projects are not vetoed in legislatures by obstructionist oppositions. This view is most famously expressed by American columnist Thomas L. Friedman who wistfully imagined a world where America could be “China for a day”: focused, efficient and ambitious.
On the right, many grudgingly admire what they see as China’s confidence about itself, a pride in Chinese-ness in contrast to the self-hating, woke West. They also admire the supposed hard-headed approach of China, how it focuses on STEM subjects rather than gender studies, as well as its lax attitude to environmental regulations.
Some liberals despair that the Free World seems distracted and decadent, whilst China moves ahead in A.I. and other important technological fields; that our addiction to our own internal political squabbles and our welfare systems leaves us soft, weak and unwilling to confront the challenges of a rising authoritarian threat.
Some of these fears are real and should be taken seriously. It is worth reminding ourselves that free, liberal democracies are not only superior morally, but are also more efficient in almost every imaginable sphere.
One of the key differences between the Free World and the authoritarian world is a decentralisation of decision-making and power.
Authoritarian regimes argue that by focusing all decision-making power on one person or a small group of people you can avoid wasted efforts and counterproductive competition, and you can more easily act decisively to solve problems. This idea was explored deeply by the “Progressives” of the late 19th century and early 20th century, who believed that the centralisation of power in the hands of experts would see a more “rational” and more “efficient” society.
These ideas were expressed in a more extreme fashion by groups such as the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, with their implementation of the planned economy, and also by the Italian Fascists, who tried to create harmony between business and labour by forcing them into cooperation. This was essentially a form of social compact where all sides agreed to work towards the goals of the Fascist party.
In every case these societies were at first admired by foreigners from the Free World for their efficiency and rationality. As a New York Times journalist said of the Soviet Union in 1919: “I have seen the future and it works”. Time would reveal in all these cases that what on the outside appeared to be some sort of model for the future where “the trains run on time”, in reality was hollow, deeply inefficient and held together by violence and bluster. All of them collapsed, often with a suddenness that shocked the people of the Free World. This was because without the inevitable errors of decision-making being spread out across the society, and without the right to freely critique the central policy, errors could not be corrected until it was too late to avoid disaster.
We don’t have to look into the past to find examples. Modern China today is beset by many of these same structural problems.
A recently published article in Foreign Affairs by Cai Xia, a former professor in China’s Central Party School, details the history and inner workings of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in recent years. It focuses on the rise to power of China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, and how he has centralised power in China, turning what was previously a small oligarchy back into a more centralised Maoist dictatorship. In the article Cai explores the serious flaws in Xi’s leadership style and his apparent intellectual insecurity.
The story as told by Cai exposes the incredible flaws that result from a system without the free speech to criticise leadership, and where policy is determined by the whims of one man. In this case, it’s the personal insistence of Xi on a “zero Covid” policy for China which has resulted in millions of people being locked down and huge disruptions to China’s economy, against the advice of his own experts. Without a media to criticise, or a political system to punish, China has seen one of the biggest disruptions to its incredible track record of economic growth in the last few decades.
Xi has also begun to reverse the policy changes which allowed China to achieve the remarkable progress it has made since the 1980s. He has targeted China’s billionaires who are seen as not being loyal, and has begun clamping down on the private sector, introducing a larger role for China’s SOEs, and more tightly regulating the economy.
Many Western politicians have proposed or implemented similar policies, but as long as the system remains free, and the state not all-encompassing, change will come if positive results are not forthcoming. In the West, for example, the ruinous policies of the 1970s which saw stagflation were abandoned in the 1980s. The West can change course long before the point of absolute crisis is reached. In China’s case the mistakes of Xi Jinping, much like those of Mao before him, are unlikely to be abandoned until his death or until China reaches a point of complete catastrophe.
Despite all the great achievements of China, the world’s wealthy still long to move to the West. The world’s best and brightest still flock to universities in free countries, and the wealth and technological centres of humanity are still to be found in the Free World.
The Free World has its problems, and it is not invincible, but as long as we keep alive our core values, our system will endure.
[Photo: Marcin Nowak for unsplash]
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