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The Rape of China's Future
| Article
# : |
15293 |
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Section : |
EDITORIAL
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1989 |
862 Words |
| Author
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Morton A. Kaplan
Editor and Publisher |
The recent savage crushing of the democracy movement in China--the subject of several articles in the Current Issues section this month--is a tragedy for both China and the world. The students had nothing in common with the wild revolutionaries of the Cultural Revolution. They asked for a modernized China in which the government would show responsiveness to the public. They asked for dialogue, a modest demand that was responded to first by martial law and then by bullets.
Why did this occur? Various elements in the Chinese government have noted recently that great economic growth has occurred in the Asian tigers--South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong under authoritarian governments. Order, it was said, is necessary for development. The recent industrial disorders in South Korea that have cut growth in GNP from 11 to 7 percent may also have been noted by Chinese authorities.
If the motivation behind the repression was based on the thesis that authoritarianism was necessary to spur development--rather than to merely hold power--it was a tragic mistake. There is modicum of truth in the belief that labor unrest--particularly in an economy of such a small scale that an export orientation is essential--can delay development. But the situation in China is essentially different.
Each of the Asian tigers was able to increase its standard of living rapidly. In South Korea, for instance, the GNP per capita at the end of the war was about $50, whereas today it is well over $2,000. Despite the 10 percent increase in China's GNP last year, the kind of rapid development achieved by South Korea is beyond the capacity of China. The
... (1995 of 5112 Characters)
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