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HONG KONG, TESTOSTERONE &
BIRTH OF THE ASIAN CENTURY
PAGE 4 OF 8
| This western cosmology was shattered when East Asia's so-called five tigers began enjoying the fruits of capitalism before planting the garden of democracy. |
n the age of the internet and the consumer society, the legitimacy of
any government--democratic, socialist or authoritarian--rises and falls with
economics. Given an expanding economy, the citizens of even presumably
vital democracies like the U.S. blithely accept their leader's penchant for
seedy sexual escapades or influence peddling. But let growth slow from a
heady 9.5% to a healthy-but-disappointing 6% and even a hero like Corea's
Kim Young-sam--widely applauded for giving up golf to devote energies to
cleaning up two generations of political squalor--gets treated like a national
disgrace for his son's influence-peddling.
Up to now the masses of Chinese have had solid economic incentive to support Beijing's bosses--whether the western media liked it or not. During the past half century the Communist Party not only restored national honor but, more to the point, created a system that provides most Chinese with food, shelter and the dignity of work--far more than can be said for the Qing court, the warlords, western imperialists or Chiang Kai-shek and his Kuomingdang.
During the most recent two decades Deng Xiaoping and the Politburo correctly read the brushstrokes on the wall and pushed sweeping economic reforms that put bicycles, TVs, and refrigerators into the homes of the 200 million in China's coastal provinces. For this Deng richly deserves the deification he will likely continue to enjoy through the next millennium.
"To get rich is glorious!" he proclaimed two decades ago. With that simple dictum he liberated the long-stifled energies of the Chinese people and snatched from the U.S. the capitalist initiative for global economic renewal. What American, German or British leader--put into power by mostly middle-class voters--would have the gall to glorify material wealth so baldly?
Deng wasn't telling his people to strive for some pale imitation of western capitalism. Truth is, capitalism as currently practiced in the U.S. and Europe has been watered down over the past century by Christian guilt about material wealth and social welfare compromises flowing from the democratic process. The richest Asian states like Corea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong practice a form of capitalism that focuses more on efficient creation of wealth rather than on notions of distributive justice.
Expats favor the Marina Club near Aberdeen on the south shore of Hong Kong island.
One reason is that Asian
societies have traditionally relied on extended family networks to care for
the aged, infirm and simply unfortunate. Another is that, having awakened
late in the game to western industrial superiority, Asian leaders
decided--correctly, for the most part--that the wiser course is to industrialize
first and democratize second.
If some of their people fell under the
steamroller of modernization, it was still preferable to having their entire
nations crushed under western imperialism. Recent history has borne out
this wisdom. Western hearts may have warmed to Corazon Aquino's
democratic coup, but became disenchanted when it failed to produce
economic growth. The west reserves its respect and admiration for economic
powerhouses like Corea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong--all of which
industrialized before democratizing. Even Japan, nominally a democracy
thanks to a U.S.-imposed constitution, didn't start behaving like one until a
decade after building an industrial base that rivals that of the U.S.
So Deng Xiaoping, in his great wisdom, didn't want China to copy the
U.S. or Europe; he wanted China to copy Japan, Corea, Singapore, Taiwan and
Hong Kong--not the Hong Kong Chris Patten tried to tart up with a hollow and
hasty democratic pretenses but the balls-out capitalist wetdream Hong Kong
whose return Deng negotiated back in the early 80s. It's that Hong
Kong which the Basic Law guarantees to preserve for 50 years.
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