Sep 26, 2008

Democracy in China

I like to summarize one of the articles written by noza park, who is a professor in Oslo public University in Norge.

One of my students who are interested in the movement in Tibet asked me "Do you think China will have democracy when they arrive at a certain level of economy?"
I answered that:
The example of Singapore shows that the relationship between the level of economy and democracy is not always related.
Even when economy grow up fast with a lot of investment, democracy is impossible unless middle class support workers, so called "union for democracy."
Unlike Korea Singapore didn't have that kind of cooperation, and Democracy remained as a dream of a few scholars.
Let's see the middle class in China.
Can we expect they will support workers?
The answer is certainly no unless world depression stops their growth.
"Why do you not believe that China can be democratic"
This is a typical question from Norge students.
When I ask "what do you think", then most of them mention "Economics level" or "Regime difference for the different regions."
I, of course, think they are the part of the truth, but it is not able to explain all.
Now China shows GDP is about 3 thousand dollars per person.
This is almost like the level of Korea in mid 1980.
At the time in Korea the popular topics for young people were "Resigning dictator", or "Democracy."
In contrast the popular topic in China now is "Raising up China (中華堀起)."

*PS:
10,170,000,000,000 / 1,321,851,888 = 7,694 dollars / person
(* Notice the difference of years for each.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

check the nominal GDP, not the one adjusted after PPP you will fins here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

that GDP per person in china is only:
$3,280,053,000,000/1,321,851,888=$2481

No offense to your point about your opinion of china's democracy, just correct the data to let you know, averagely speaking, Chinese are not as rich as you thought.
Black Beauty