Welcome.
Today’s podcast asks the question, is China more democratic than Canada?
On June 28, 2021, as Canadians were reeling from the discovery
of hundreds of unmarked graves at the sites
of former residential schools in Saskatchewan
(and many more would be found in British Columbia a couple of weeks later),
Senator Yuen Pau Woo gave a speech.
It was a speech that generated headlines across Canada,
a fact that in itself was more than a little unusual.
The Canadian Senate, most of the time, does its work in relative obscurity.
Indeed, most Canadians are hard-pressed to name a single member
of this 105-person legislative body.
What possibly could have generated such attention for one of its members?
Senator Woo’s speech was in opposition to a motion in the Senate
that condemned China’s treatment of its Muslim Uyghur minority,
referring to this treatment as genocide,
and the motion called on the International Olympic Committee
to move the 2022 winter games out of China.
Senator Woo’s arguments were, in fact, long, quite nuanced, and thoughtful.
What incited a firestorm of criticism was his claim that the Chinese regime
is no less legitimate than Canada’s and that by some measures
China is more democratic than Canada.
Oh, and he added that Canada’s historical treatment of Indigenous peoples
has been such that Canadians and their governments have no moral high ground
from which to preach to the Chinese authorities about their treatment of the Uyghurs,
much less to toss around charges of genocide.
You can read Senator Woo’s entire speech at his website.
It is worth your time.
Let’s consider the three claims
that got Senator Woo in hot water with his many critics.
First is his argument that the Chinese regime is as legitimate,
perhaps even more legitimate, than Canada’s.
By legitimacy, political theorists and political scientists
generally mean popular acceptance of the rules,
norms and institutions of government.
Here is what Senator Woo said.
It’s rather a long quotation, but it’s certainly worth paying attention to.
Here is what he said:
“[A]s political theorists will remind us, there are two kinds of state legitimacy:
There is input legitimacy and there is output legitimacy.
In the West, we tend to place much more emphasis on input legitimacy,
which is essentially about how we select our representatives.”
“Hence, the focus on free and fair elections.
But in practice, citizens also confer legitimacy to their governments
based on the results that are produced by that government
—that is to say, on 'outputs'.
Now, like most of you, I was brought up in the orthodoxy
that input democracy through free and fair elections will in the long run outperform
because citizens can always vote out a government that has not performed
and in that way seek to improve outputs by changing the inputs.”
“But we are learning” said Senator Woo
“the hard way that democratic elections and changes in the government
over decades have not consistently produced better outcomes
for citizens in many industrialized economies.
Sure, there has been economic growth,
but income and wealth inequality have increased,
with stagnating median incomes, and growing societal tension.
That is the reason for what is now widely observed to be the problem
of a democratic deficit in western industrialized economies,
and the rise of populist leaders who have illiberal instincts
but nevertheless command much support through democratic elections.”
Okay, so that’s the end of that first passage from Senator Woo’s speech.
Senator Woo then links legitimacy,
and his argument that there is no reason to assume
that the Chinese system of government is less legitimate than Canada’s,
to a claim about which country is more democratic.
Here is what he said:
“The argument that the Chinese government is illegitimate
is typically based on the observation that it is not democratic.
Well, you may be surprised to learn”
Senator Woo said
“that in a recent poll on the state of democracy around the world,
70 percent of Chinese respondents agreed with the proposition
that the Peoples Republic of China is democratic,
compared to 65 percent in Canada, 60 percent in India,
and only 50 percent in the United States.
.”That’s 50 percent of American’s who thought their system was democratic.
“On a different question” Senator Woo continues
“about degrees of democracy, respondents in China
expressed greater satisfaction with the status quo in their country
than did respondents in Canada and the United States.”
And that’s the end of that passage.
So, let’s stop for a moment to summarize Senator Woo’s arguments.
First, a political system that does not rely on competitive elections
and the protection of individual rights and freedoms may earn legitimacy
in the eyes of its citizens by providing such conditions as social stability,
economic prosperity, and a lower level of socio-economic inequality
than in countries that rely on western liberal-democratic norms
and institutions to generate legitimacy.
Second, many countries that rely on input legitimacy
have found that this has not prevented growing inequality,
a shrinking middle class,
an increase in social tensions, and the rise of populism.
Third, the Chinese people are more likely than Canadians,
Americans and the citizens of some other democracies
to believe that their political system is democratic
and to express satisfaction with the status quo.
Senator Woo appears to conclude from this
that China may in fact be more democratic than these other countries.
The strongest part of Senator Woo’s argument is that legitimacy,
the Chinese people’s acceptance of the Chinese political and economic model, is high.
He is doubtless correct when he says that this is because the model
delivers the goods.
It delivers the goods in the eyes of the majority of the country’s citizens.
Of course, it doesn’t deliver the goods in the eyes of its Uygher minority,
or in the eyes of people in Hong Kong who oppose
the termination of democratic rights and procedures that they have grown used to,
or in the eyes of all those Chinese dissidents who have been jailed or who live abroad
because of their criticism of the regime.
But if—and it is a big if—the point of a political and economic model
is to generate as much satisfaction as possible
with the system among as many people as possible, then he is correct.
Senator Woo is correct.
The weakest part of his argument is that a high level of popular legitimacy,
as measured by citizens’ belief that the political system is democratic
and high popular satisfaction with the country’s state of affairs,
can be interpreted as proof of democracy.
As I am recording this, Canada is in the thick of a national election campaign.
And as is usual during an election campaign,
evidence of disagreement and dissatisfaction on the part of many Canadians
are very much on display.
In the United States, the political polarization
that led to the Capitol Hill rioting of January 6, 2021 appears unabated.
In France, the government’s introduction of a Covid vaccination passport
in August 2021, required in order to be able to enter cafes, restaurants,
theaters and other public places,
led to enormous demonstrations in Paris and other French cities.
At about the same time,
thousands of Germans protested in the streets of Berlin
in violation a court-ordered ban on public marches
opposing the government’s Covid measures.
They were opposed by these demonstrators as fascistic limits on personal freedom.
About 600 persons were arrested.
Should we think of all this messiness and conflict
as dysfunctional and as things to be avoided?
The fact that most people believe they live in a democracy and are satisfied
with the political status quo or, conversely,
that many people believe that their democracy is flawed
and are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs,
proves nothing about the reality of democracy.
People can be fooled and kept in the dark by state propaganda and censorship.
They may live in a society whose dominant cultural norms place the nation
or some other collectivity above individual and group rights.
Or they may believe,
as some people in Canada and other western democracies do,
that their views and preferences
are ignored by those who control the levers of power.
The attributes of democracy have long been debated and are not agreed.
But any definition that relies on public opinion
as the true measure of whether a country’s political system is democratic
and how it stacks up against another country’s political system
should be considered suspect.
This is not a criterion that is used by such organizations
as Amnesty International, Humans Rights Watch, Freedom House,
the Economist Intelligence Unit’s “Democracy Index,”
or the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance’s
annual “Global State of Democracy Index.”
Now, some will object that all of these organizations reflect western biases
when it comes to democracy.
Such a charge is, presumably, more difficult to level at the United Nations.
And in fact, the UN does not come out four-square behind democracy
as the ideal form of government, stating instead that as an organization it,
“does not advocate for a particular model of government,
but that it, “promotes democratic governance as a set of values and principles
that should be followed for greater participation, equality,
security and human development.”
The UN goes on to state that,
“Democracy provides an environment that respects human rights
and fundamental freedoms,
and in which the freely expressed will of people is exercised.
People have a say in decisions and can hold decision-makers to account.
Women and men have equal rights and all people are free from discrimination.”
In fact, the UN’s characterization of democracy that I just read to you
is pretty much the understanding that Amnesty International,
Human Rights Watch, Freedom House and the other organizations mentioned above
use in evaluating the democratic performance of countries across the world.
Back to Senator Woo and his third argument,
namely that Canada is in no position to criticize China
for what some believe to be egregious human rights violations and even genocide.
Senator Woo says, and I quote:
“[In Canada we] have a view of individual liberties that is embodied
embodied in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms that we hold sacred,
and which would not today allow our government to make mass arrests
on the suspicion of terrorism,
force whole communities to attend schools
for what we perceive to be for their benefit, sterilize women
so that they did not burden themselves and society with 'inferior' children,
or relocate entire villages in order to give them modern amenities.”
“Except” Senator Woo says“that we did all those things,
and we did them throughout our short history as a country,
most appallingly to Indigenous peoples,
but also to recent immigrants and minority groups
who were deemed undesirable, untrustworthy, or just un-Canadian.”
Senator Woo concludes
“The fact that China does not share our view of individual freedoms
or indeed our interpretation of freedoms based on the Charter
is not a basis on which to lecture the Chinese
on how they should govern themselves.”
Well, is Senator Woo right?
Canadians were reminded by the discovery in the summer of 2021
of hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children
who died while attending residential schools,
that their country’s history includes some very disturbing chapters
when it comes to human rights.
And it’s also true that some German, Japanese, and Italian Canadians
were held in internment camps during World War II,
and that governments in Canada were complicit
in the targeted sterilization of some Indigenous women
and persons judged to be “mentally defective.”
But it is also true that in a democracy such matters can be discussed,
accountability assigned, and redress made for injustices.
Dark chapters do not remain forever in the dark.
Now, this is not some minor or trivial difference
between democracies and non-democracies.
Senator Woo knows that he would not be permitted to stand
before the National People’s Congress of China and talk about the demonstrators
who were killed at Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989.
As Prime Minister Trudeau said in response to Chinese government criticisms
of Canada’s human rights record,
“In Canada, we had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission…
where is China’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission? ...
Where is the openness that Canada has always shown and the responsibility
that Canada has taken for the terrible mistakes of the past?”
Well, we can at least thank Senator Woo
for raising some interesting questions about democracy,
even if we may disagree with his answers.
What do you think?