The Danger of False Truths – Part 3/3

July 23, 2011

In another e-mail, this “old” friend questioned China’s behavior in Asia and mentioned the disagreement between Vietnam and China over some offshore oil fields that both countries claim.

He felt this was a sign that China would wage war on other countries and inferred this would not happen if China were a democracy similar to the US, since “no democracy has ever gone to war with another democracy” (his words).

Soon after I received that e-mail, I used Google and found Democracies Do Not Make War on One Another … or Do They? by Matthew White, who does a great job throwing ice-cold water on another false truth.

White says, basically, it depends on the definition of democracy and that individuals will shift the meaning of the definition to fit what he or she wants to believe.

To come up with a set of probabilities, White studied the wars that took place in 1967 and came up with these results:

White wrote, “Now, 1967 is just a single year, but I’ve spent a good deal of this Atlas counting democracies. I can state with reasonable certainty that 44.5% of mapable sovereignties during the WW2-Y2K Era were full democracies. This calculates out to…

  • The odds of 2 random democracies going to war: 19.8%
  • The odds of 2 random non-democracies going to war: 30.8%
  • The odds of a random democracy going to war with a random non-democracy: 49.4%

He also mentions an interesting theory that “no two countries with a McDonald’s Restaurant have ever gone to war with one another”, which seems to indicate that as countries are incorporated into the global economy by trans-national corporations, they stop waging war on one another.

This theory is an individual truth that most of us might want to believe since there then should be no worry that the US and China will ever wage war.

In 2009, the US had 13,381 McDonalds and in 2010, China had almost 1,000 with thousands more planned. In addition, China has thousands of Pizza Huts, KFCs, Starbucks and the Chinese love to drive Buicks and Fords. Wal-Mart is even building stores in China.

However, I discovered the McDonald’s theory might be another false truth.

Pakistan has 25 McDonalds and the first one was built in 1998. India has 192 with the first built in 1996, and the last Indo-Pakistani War was in 1999.

Return to The Danger of False Truths – Part 2 or start with Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Considering China as a Democracy – Part 3/3

April 6, 2011

In Parts 1 and 2, we discovered that being a democracy does not protect the people from chaos, anarchy, war and hunger.

In China’s history, there have been many examples of what happens when a central government collapses. Between every great dynasty—the Han, Tang, Sung, Ming and Qing—there have been rebellions, chaos and anarchy causing tens of millions of deaths and hardship.

Another example from the US is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It is common knowledge by those in the know that the FDA is controlled by the food and drug industry and many of the decisions of the FDA benefit industries while hurting the public.

The Washington Post revealed another example of democracy gone wrong when it recently reported on Past Medical Testing on Humans by the US government and American pharmaceutical companies.

In China, when corruption of this type is discovered, the officials caught often face prison and possible execution. In the US, few if any are punished.

In addition, since China has more spoken languages than India along with fifty-six recognized minority groups numbering more than one hundred million people, China would have more political parties competing for votes than India creating the same gridlock and corrupt political environment.

Deng Xiaoping was right in 1989 when he said China wasn’t ready for a Western style democracy.  In fact, China may never be ready.

In the West, there is a wise idiom. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t,” which means that it is often better to deal with someone or something you are familiar with and know, even if they are not ideal, than take a risk with an unknown person or thing.

However, it is possible that this is exactly what China’s critics and enemies want, as it could spell the end of China’s rise as a soon-to-be economic and military super power rivaling the US.

Return to Considering China as a Democracy – Part 2 or start with Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Considering China as a Democracy – Part 2/3

April 5, 2011

In Part 1, we discovered what happened to India as a multi-party parliamentary democracy.

What does US history teach us?  Since Independence, the US has had several financial crises leading to severe unemployment and economic hardships for many.  The US suffered through financial/economic depressions in 1807, 1837, 1873, 1893, 1929-1939 (known as the Great Depression). Source: San Jose State University Department of Economics

Then there was the recent 2008 global financial crises leading to about 64 trillion dollars in global losses and tens of millions of lost jobs (9 million in the US and about 20 million in China alone).

This global financial collapse had its start in the world’s most powerful democracy and could have been avoided.

Although there have been many predictions in the West that China’s economy will collapse, that hasn’t materialized yet as it has in the US several times.

In fact, soon after the 2008 global financial crises hit, China put the unemployed back to work while importing goods from other nations helping to support those economies to survive the crises.

As The Damned clearly shows, democracy doesn’t always work, and Abraham Lincoln was a tyrant, who plunged the US into the bloodiest war of its history.

This happened again in Vietnam under President Johnson and in Iraq under President G. W. Bush. 

For example, after the Qing Dynasty collapsed in 1911, instead of an orderly republic replacing it as Sun Yat-sen hoped, China fractured with warlords fighting each other in every province.

Then in 1926, Chiang Kai-shek’s distrust of the Communist Party led to decades of Civil War (1926 – 1949) and unrest instead of cooperation between the two founding parties of Sun Yat-sen’s fledgling republic — the Communist and Nationalist parties.

In Part 3, we will learn from Chinese history and the US today.

Return to Considering China as a Democracy – Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Considering China as a Democracy – Part 1/3

April 4, 2011

Using history, the US and India as examples of what democracy offers may show what might happen in China if it were to become a multi-party republic with a democratic political system.

India became a democracy in 1947, and more than 60 years later, about 40% of the population is still illiterate and lives in severe poverty due to political gridlock and government corruption, while the CIA reports that only 2 1/2 percent of Chinese live in similar poverty today.

For India, that’s 400 million people while China has 33 million living in severe poverty mostly in remote and rugged areas of China.

Thirty years ago, about sixty percent of Chinese lived in severe poverty. When Mao ruled China (1949-1976), 30 to 40 million died from famines. No one has died from famine since Mao’s death.

However, in 2009, the Times of India reported that India tops world hunger chart. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) reported some staggering figures. More than 27% of the world’s undernourished population lives in India while 43% of children (under 5 years) in the country are underweight. The figure is among the highest in the world…

In India, which has a democratic parliamentary political system, there are six recognized national parties and more than forty recognized state parties. Source: Wikipedia

While China’s one political party has managed to almost end poverty and boost literacy from 20 to more than 90% in thirty years, India’s many-party democracy has failed.

In Part 2, we will see why China may not survive to become a successful democracy if US history is an indication of what the future holds.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Mostly Free to be Poor

February 15, 2011

Riz Khan hosts a program for Al Jazeera English and in this twenty-two minute segment, he leads a discussion about the possibility that democracy hinders economic growth.

Khan asks, “Is a centralized system, such as China’s one party, better than democracy for growth?”

Both India and China became countries about the same time.  In 2008, India’s GDP was $1.16 trillion and China’s was about three times larger at $4.33 trillion.

There is a debate in India that China’s one party political system has allowed China to modernize and improve lifestyles easier and faster than India’s democracy.

His first guest speaker is Tarun Khanna, a professor of the Harvard School of Business, who does not agree with the argument that India’s democracy is the cause of slow growth.

His opinion is that democracy may be a faulty option but it is the best of the faulty options we have. However, he says it is true that India’s democracy has underperformed.

Then MIT Professor Yasheng Huang says in the last thirty years, the leadership in China has improved its decision-making and made many correct decisions regarding productivity.

A listener to the program sends a message from Facebook.  “All a country needs is purposeful leadership, security, vision, and justice for all. China has demonstrated all this, unlike India.”

Professor Huang disagrees with the Facebook comment.

Kahanna says that China’s strong leadership has been an asset and that even in the Communist Party there is a meritocracy of sorts, which is a system of advancement based on individual ability or achievement—something that India’s political system lacks at this time.

Regarding a dictatorship, Huang says a dictatorship wouldn’t work in India. The culture is too complex.

Kahanna agrees that a dictatorship wouldn’t work in India and says India has to improve its democracy.

Huang feels if China doesn’t change its economic structure and put more emphasis on private companies, India will be the better place to do business in regards to long-term growth.

Kahanna says India’s biggest challenge is to include as many people as possible to share in the economic growth and more than half of its population has been left in poverty.  He says the biggest challenge will be basic health care and education and there has to be more opportunities in India for more people. The caste system in India is also a problem. India’s politicians must stop politicizing the cast system.

Professor Huang then says that democracy is not a solution to solve all of society’s problems. There has to be more than free elections. However, an authoritarian system is also not the answer. He says, take the strengths of both India and China and figure a way to take advantage of them—to make them work.

Learn more at India Falling Short

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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