China will have to switch to democracy

ARTICLE: China Nearly Doubles Security Budget for Xinjiang, By EDWARD WONG, New York Times, January 13, 2010

This step (doubling the security budget for restive Western province Xinjiang) gives you a sense of the inevitably rising cost for Beijing of maintaining control throughout the nation.

I have never had any doubt that Beijing would initially opt for more control on every subject as the nation's development advanced. But the larger reality is that such efforts will degrade China's competitive advantages on price over time.

Once the extensive growth period is done and the "golden period" of demographic advantage dissipates, there is no advantage to having authoritarian government--despite the many myths recently created about the "superiority" of China's single-party state. China is heading to the all-things-being-equal part of advanced development, and when a regime reaches that point, democracies simply perform better--not by how they run things but by how they get the hell out of the way of those who really need to run things, aka the private sector.

(Via WPR's Media Roundup)

Comments

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All in time, my friend, All in time . .

[James Benoit]

Simply the best quote on how democracies don't run things better but get the hell out of the way for those who have to run things. I shall quote you often on this one. Great stuff

[Guest469]

Strongly agree with your last paragraph which why I think Chinjese democratization is inevitable, just not right now. Even Soviet Union had a decade of immense growth due to brute industrialization. China is at this phase now.