By Nicholas Khoo*
It’s not every day that a New Zealand prime minister takes China’s side in a disagreement between Washington and Beijing over whether the leader of China is a dictator.
But these are extraordinary times.
At a fundraising event on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden found himself talking about the Chinese espionage balloon incident in February. The president was in full voice, claiming, “The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it was he didn’t know it was there.”
He then went on to say, “That’s a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn’t know what happened. That wasn’t supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course.”
At a press briefing in Beijing the next day, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, called Biden’s comments “irresponsible” and said they “go totally against facts and seriously violate diplomatic protocol, and severely infringe on China’s political dignity”.
But from a strictly factual point of view, Biden’s “dictator” comments were spot on. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a dictator as “an absolute ruler of a state”. Xi Jinping would seem to fit the bill.
He is general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the 2022 CCP constitution states that the party is committed “to uphold the people’s democratic dictatorship”.
‘Democratic dictatorship’ in theory and practice
The people’s democratic dictatorship concept was formally advanced for the first time in a landmark speech in 1949 by Mao Zedong, who led China from 1949 to 1976.
The concept is a cornerstone of the Chinese political system, and establishes the theoretical basis by which the CCP historically led the various “classes” of people in China – the working class, the peasant class, the petty bourgeoisie and the national capitalists:
to maintain dictatorship over the lackeys of imperialism – the landlord class, the bureaucratic capitalist class and the Kuomintang reactionaries and their henchmen representing these classes – to oppress them, to enable them to behave properly and not permit them to talk and act wildly.
It also serves as one of the CCP’s “Four Cardinal Principles”. According to the CCP constitution:
The Four Cardinal Principles – to keep to the path of socialism, to uphold the people’s democratic dictatorship, to uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and to uphold Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought – form the foundation for building the country.
So far, so theoretical. But how does the people’s democratic dictatorship concept operate in the real world?
In essence, it legitimises Xi’s rule over China (from 2012 to the present). Indeed, it is widely recognised both in and out of China that he is the country’s most powerful leader since Mao.
Dictatorship by any other name
This is where Prime Minister Chris Hipkins comes into the picture. On Thursday he was asked by a reporter in Lower Hutt if he agreed with Biden’s “dictator” comment. His response was: “No, and the form of government that China has is a matter for the Chinese people.”
The obvious response is to observe that, as a matter of law in China, Xi is the leader of a political system where there are no competitive multiparty elections. The seven members of the standing committee of the CCP select the general secretary of the CCP, not the citizens.
Careful planning by the CCP ensures there is zero uncertainty as to who will be selected as leader of China at every party congress, held every five years. If that is not a dictatorship, then what is?
We may debate whether the country has a benign or a malign dictatorship. But a dictatorship it is.
Hipkins was also asked how the Chinese people could actually change the way they are governed. He replied, “That would be a matter for them.” But precisely because China is run by the CCP through the mechanism of a “people’s democratic dictatorship”, the matter is not up to them.
‘Bourgeois liberalisation’
One hopes the prime minister gives serious thought to these issues before his visit to China and meeting with Xi next week. After all, history clearly demonstrates that dictatorships have had an adversarial relationship with liberal democracies.
Former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping characterised liberal democracy as an example of “bourgeois liberalisation” and launched a campaign in 1987 against such unwanted influences.
And the CCP constitution states that the party must not just “uphold the people’s democratic dictatorship” but “oppose bourgeois liberalisation”.
The tangle the prime minister got himself into in Lower Hutt underlines the complex realities of heightened ideological differences underpinned by great-power rivalry in the 21st century.
It also reinforces the point that, in the third decade of the century, New Zealand must have a foreign policy to match those challenges.
*Nicholas Khoo, Associate Professor of International Politics, University of Otago. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
16 Comments
Mao Zedong adopted and followed the example of the Bolsheviks. The relative pattern of civil war followed by the slaughter of the bourgeoisie and others and communism taken off the shelf basically as an alternative structure of government. Thus Chinese dictators sit in power just as their Russian counterpart does and the USSR forerunners. Both nations have had centuries and centuries of totalitarianism. The Tsars were brutal in their own right as too the Chinese emperors. Years ago recall Rewi Alley recounting how utterly brutal Chiang Kai Shek was and would have been if he had prevailed in that civil war. Seems to be the populations are more or less immovably conditioned and resigned to the one strong leader model , regardless of the cloth or whatever the title.
Chiang Kai Shek shifted to Formosa and set up an alternative Chinese government there. Everyone already there and the people who shifted there after the final CCP Chinese takeover were and are treated far less brutally than the mainlanders. Rewi Alley didn't seem to notice anything much that was going on in China while he was allowed to live there.
It's all relative I guess. Look up The White Terror period in Taiwan's history. Kuomintang was essentially a one part state from from 1947 to 1992, and even now is still the richest political party in the world because during that time there was little difference between the state and the party. Martial law continued during that whole period. Hoklo, Hakka and indigenous languages banned in schools and in official locations. The waishengren who came over from the Mainland controlled the government, army, police, all the way down to schools and councils. After the Japanese left the place was very much recolonised by the mainlanders. To be fair it has liberalised a lot in the last 30 years. But people there don't want history repeating with another colonial power arriving.
The Cost of Biden’s ‘Democracy’ Fixation
It alienates allies his foreign policy needs both domestically and around the world.
Many countries share America’s concerns about Chinese, Russian and Iranian expansionism. China’s abuse of the World Trade Organization harms the whole world. The American-led global system that Russia and China want to break brought many countries unprecedented prosperity and security.
Possibly, but it must be noted:
Michael Hudson: "People keep thinking that America has been fighting Russia in the Ukraine. A few years ago, the American planners realized that there was no way that they can keep up with Eurasia’s development. How can they maintain American living standards a little longer while we’re not a manufacturing country anymore? The answer is, at least we can control Europe and make Europe into a colony, just as Europe made Africa and Latin America into colonies. The effect of this war has been America against Germany and Europe." Link
What are the chances that New Zealand is "lying about China's "dictatorship"" and this is the first time the US isnt lying about a nation it doesn't like? + when you begin sanctioning your own supposed allies, they aren't sanctions, it is you isolating yourself from the world. Link
Unfortunately, The White House readout makes it official policy.
No, but I really mean it. China is real — has real economic difficulties. And the reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two boxcars full of spy equipment in it is he didn’t know it was there. No, I’m serious. That’s what’s a great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened. That wasn’t supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course up through Alaska and then down through the United States. And he didn’t know about it. When it got shot down, he was very embarrassed. He denied it was even there. Link
Chippy would have been better to refrain from expressing an opinion. As the PM he expresses NZ's official position, and in this instance he appears to be upholding what is in effect a dictatorship.
Good article from Nicholas Khoo with some information I was not previously aware of. Those policy statements are statements of the CCP which seized power by force, were not and have never been elected to power by the people, and therefore cannot be taken as a mandate from the people of China. Thus China's claim over Taiwan is not a legitimate one.
I wouldn't go that far re:Taiwan. you could call Taiwan the real China, the China in Beijing illegitimate, but you cannot claim Taiwan is not China. In fact, it's the Chinese people who pushes CCP on the 'One China' policy, not CCP dictating the people on 'One China' policy.
Proof please. Where do you get it that it is the Chinese people pushing this?
I would not call either the CCP of today or the Kuomintang's government legitimate. But Taiwan today has largely a popularly elected democratic government which gives it far greater legitimacy than that of the CCP.
this is certainly is a highly political topic about Xi and Chinese politics.
I'd only suggest we compare the Democratic Dictatorship with the Liberal Democracy, apple to apple, to help us understand where we stand.
another note is to express my disappointment with US politics. I don't really get why Biden go for another term, or why that Florida crazy person ran for president. And, why those are only options anyways.
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