Despite failing to gain a significant following, the Jasmine Revolution in China spent a surprisingly long period of time in the 24 hour news cycle last week. Most experts seem to agree that the movement was destined to fail due to current cultural zeitgeist and effective central government propaganda. According to Wenran Jiang, a professor at the University of Alberta, despite there being a large income gap as well as a large group of extremely poor individuals, Chinese citizens are proud of the growth that the country has exhibited and have benefited from China’s massive growth in GDP. This is not to say that citizens are unaware of rampant corruption or even happy with their government; however, Chinese citizens often fail to place blame on the central government for problems of corruption and poor government; instead they will blame the local power structure for their governmental woes (Daniel Bell, professor at Tsinghua University).
Another general consensus in discussion is that the government response to the protests was overly harsh and unnecessary. Some experts maintain that this was because the government is terrified of its own people and therefore seeks to repress any sign of protest. Others state that the regime acts out of caution. However, this quest to find a motive for the government’s harsh response misses a key point and skirts the more important discussion of what the response actually entails for the future of democratic protest in China. The Chinese Communist party responded to these calls for protest not out of a sense of caution or fear; instead, they just reacted the only way they know how towards any form of popular movement by absolutely overwhelming it and reinforcing its own power along the way. This type of response, one that brooks no argument or opposition, speaks ill of the future of democracy in China.
The Chinese government has great experience in suppressing popular revolution as well as dealing with any political backlash. This experience starts back in 1957, when the Communist regime invited criticism of the government through the “hundred flowers campaign” in order to lure out potential dissidents, and it is hard to forget the failed protests by students in Tiananmen, practitioners of Falun Gong, and even respected intellectuals like Liu Xiaobo. This historical precedent dictates that the Chinese government has responded to any form of protest in the exact same manner, with zero tolerance and great force. Such actions are not born of fear or caution; they are just the natural response of a system that allows no alternative viewpoints. However, the government is able to perform such harsh measures with little political and societal backlash by pitting the populace against its own local power structure and spinning their actions as ones that promote stability and peace.
The Communist party itself has perpetuated the idea that democratic reforms will be gradually introduced after China is done growing and reaching economic prosperity. This idea has been picked up and trumpeted by many scholars. However, even those who are skeptical of the government’s willingness to introduce these reforms on their own believe that once the Chinese people are less focused on climbing the social ladder, they will demand democratic reform (Oded Shenkar, author of The Chinese Century), and almost every expert believes that the current regime’s system of oppression is unsustainable.
However, time is very important for such movements, and time seems to be an unlimited resource that the Communist government has. Now that China is the second largest country in the world by GDP, one would expect certain democratic reforms to be viable; however, no mention of even the beginning of such a process has even occurred. The government can essentially constantly push back the date of such reforms by citing greater and greater economic goals. Already deeply entrenched in Chinese society, it will only take a few more years for the government to become completely institutionalized.
Discussion on the Jasmine Revolution should not focus on the nature of the government response or government motives, instead discussion should focus on what such a response means for democratic processes in the future. The government’s response to the Jasmine Revolution has shown that it still remains, despite great economic and social growth, the same forceful, totalitarian government that it has always been. Such aspects of the government will not disappear with time or greater societal changes. People should not expect any form of gradual, passive democratic change, and a choice will need to be made very soon over whether economic growth and individual prosperity is more important than maintaining one’s basic human rights.