FT book review of "Tide Players: The Movers and Shakers of a Rising China" by Jianying Zha. I just really liked the opening bit by reviewer David Pilling, an FT journalist/columnist whose beat is currently China:
Many westerners who are rightly incensed at the treatment of dissidents such as Liu Xiaobo or Ai Weiwei probably have a false impression of what modern China feels like. They imagine a uniformly repressive society in which people are afraid to speak out and where the heavy hand of the state reaches into every crevice of life.
This view is not without some truth. But for many middle-class city dwellers, China could not feel more different. For them, today’s China is a fantastic adventure, a lunge into a world of previously unimagined possibilities. Even among the generation that lived through the horrors of the Cultural Revolution, this is widely regarded as the most optimistic time to be alive in China in hundreds of years.
I think that simple notion is very hard for most in the West to understand, especially since our grasp of the Cultural Revolution's depth and historical reach is hard to understand. Take Xi Jinping, who will be the next president and rule through 2022: his bio includes being jailed several times as a teenager by the Red Guard because of his father's ideological sins. Xi is considered a very company man - very careful. And his early years probably account for that.
So here we are: seeing political leadership impact stretch a good half century past the actual events. In the US, comparable experiences would be the Civil War and WWII (think of GHW Bush as the last WWII president leaving office in 1993 - almost 50 years post-WWII). It's that big of an event, and it creates a profound sense of optimism and wariness in its shadow: people remember well how bad it was and value highly how good it's been since the "rise" began.
And you know what? The vast bulk of them don't want to mess with that at all - for now. But a new tipping point looms - I believe - in about 20 more years, because the Xi's of China are replaced by the kids whose first memories are all Deng-and-beyond. For them, Mao's insanities are just stories their parents and grandparents tell. They have known only the "rise" and thus will be far more demanding. They're mostly carefully thinking and acting along these lines today, and as their numbers move into power, and as they face even greater demand - and less historical awareness from below, the change will come.
It can always come a bit earlier or a bit later because of this or that unforeseen event, but the demographics will make it so.
And that's why I don't worry too much about China and democracy - as we misuse the term. The true and comprehensive republic will come; it's been there before. It'll come because the Chinese will demand it.
This is why I can work with the Center for America-China Partnership and still be critical of China.