Globalization, Global Democratization and China

¾Opening speech at the International Conference on Globalization, China and Straits Relations

Yang Jianli, July 1, 2001, Washington DC, USA

Globalization, as an expanding process of some sorts of internationally interdependent relations, is on longer a novelty. Without going too far back, at the beginning of the last century, a capital internationalization had been widely spread. Sometime between the two World Wars, “Capital Needs No Boundary” became a familiar slogan in the western capitalist countries. Going in an opposite direction, on the other hand, the Communist movement with the “Working Class Needs No Motherland” slogan was also widely spreading. These two types of opposing globalization were both trying to establish a just, lasting and more convincing order that would tie the world capital, states and even individuals together, one way or another. Much to the same, a new tide of the globalization movement at the end of the last century, especially after 1989, was also powered up by the desire for a more human and sustainable relations between capital, states and individuals. Although internationally we saw protests in Seattle, Washington and Quebec against free trade and domestically we witnessed anti-globalization trend from China’s new leftists, the resistance to globalization this time is almost unspeakably weak in comparison with those in the earlier times. We can’t help asking why? I think it is because this time we have a more fundamental component in addition to the internationalization of capital and free trade. This new component is the global democratization based on the universally accepted human rights value. This is reflected not only in the foreign policies of many democratic countries, but also in the democratic pursuant of the people in non-democratic nations and their expectation of support from the world’s democracies. The entire human society has never had as much faith in democracy as today.

However, in practical courses promoting a global democratization, we face a difficult problem. Behind the globalization of capital are the international capitalists who have the money. It’s a natural trend for capital to move to the places that will generate the greatest return. In other words, the capital globalization is realized by individual actions of many investors. But a global democratization needs collective actions, just as what’s needed for the democratization in a single country. For example, from the most selfish angle, every democratic country would hope it is the other countries that take the responsibilities of human rights diplomacy, when facing China, but itself in good terms with the Chinese government and thus positioned better to get a big bite of the Chinese market. Also, every democratic country may assume everyone else is thinking the same, resulting in worries in everyone’s mind of being left behind in business deals and becoming so foolishly the only “devil” for being tough on human rights issues. Of course, many foreign businessmen in China acted exactly like this. Therefore, although a global democratization meets the interests of every democratic country, all these countries together will likely take no action because of this “collective action” dilemma. Let’s take the World Trade Organization (WTO) as an example. The WTO’s mission is to promote a free economy in a global scale. A free economy has to have free flows of capitals, products, labor and information in combination with fair competitions based on these free flows. However, in a foreseeable future, a free labor flow won’t be possible. Therefore, if the WTO is to promote a really free economy, it can’t ignore the universality of the human rights standard. But human rights issues are not on WTO’s agenda. In addition, free information flow in countries like China is severely impaired. Not only did not the WTO let people in those countries know more about and thus can monitor their government’s trade policies, but the TWO’s own operations are carried out pretty much in a black box. I think this is exactly the “democracy deficit of the global economy” said by Lori Wallace, one of the key leaders of the Seattle protest. In other words, the economic globalization owes a great deal to the global democratization! We can compare this with China’s current situation. We can use “democracy deficit of the Chinese economy” to describe what the Chinese modernization owed to China’s democratization. Just as what we often ask “where can the driving force for democratization in China translate to effective collective action?” we can’t help asking “where can the driving force for global democratization translate to a collective action?

Besides this, there are still many unanswered questions about globalization.

What types of government responsibilities can be over taken by multi-nation companies? What can be left alone? Does the globalization demand for a single world government or a few? If so, what responsibilities should the world government take over from the governments of individual countries or companies? Should these world governments be democratic? Who are the voters then? Should non-democratic countries be allowed to take part in the affairs of the world government? If so, how can the people’s will in those countries be represented? State sovereignty is no longer absolute and human rights must be above state sovereignty. This has been a consensus of all but some governments and scholars in a few non-democratic countries. But, how do we implement this in practice?

Some people think that globalization will make the rich countries richer and the poor poorer. This is not always true. Many countries have become advanced because of their trade with advanced countries. The question is, under what domestic and international circumstances a undeveloped country can close up its gaps with advanced countries by involving itself in a global economy and vice versa? Market economy is not always making the rich richer and the poor poorer; but why is it so and more and more so in China?

The worst timed in China were when it closed its doors. In the past century, no single country in the entire world was able to realize its economic modernization and political democratization with closed doors. To open up should be a consensus among the Chinese. But we all know that China’s state enterprises are incapable of competing with foreign companies. Joining the global economy will hit hard on China’s infrastructure industries as well as finance sector. Should China only join the global economy after completing its economic privatization and political democratization, and after a true market is matured with many really competitive business executives who have the real power to run China’s economy? But if we wait, are we going to miss the opportunities and lag behind even more?

We all know that the interests of the Chinese government and the capitalists are converging in today’s China. Market economy in China is deepening the conflicts between the government and the workers and peasants. Therefore, the working people’s demands for democracy out of their own interests may well appear to be anti-capitalist. What is its implication to China’s modernization? Is the fundamental value of democracy really always in line with a capitalist economy? Where is the balance if not? Along with the continuing inflow of international capital and capitalists, how will the government-people relation in China change and to what extent? What does all this mean to China’s democratization?

In the globalization process, the capitalist countries that are geographically and culturally close tend to integrate their economies. For example, there have been the European Union (EU) and the Northern American Free Trade Area (NAFTA). However, few have faith in a unified market between China and Taiwan in a foreseeable future even though the two parties have the same people and culture. Why is it so? After entering the WTO, how are the relations across the Taiwan Straits going to change? What kind of democratization in China can benefit the public interests in Taiwan? Is Taiwan obligated to support China’s democratization? Is Taiwan’s effort to gain international recognition going to hurt the public interests in China?

All these globalization-related questions have a lot to do with the future of China and Taiwan and they worth our study. These questions have bothered me for many years. What’s exciting today is that we are lucky to have some thirty outstanding scholars here to study and debate these issues. Of course, we don’t expect answers to all these questions out of a conference. We may in fact never find satisfactory answers. But I believe our two-day conference will uplift our discussions to a new level. I am looking forward to everyone’s opinions while I expect free and even heated discussions from all of you.

Thank you all.