Washington Post / By Adrian Karatnycky
The House has voted, and trade relations with China will soon be normalized. But the great debate between advocates of open economic relations and proponents of punitive sanctions avoided the fundamental question: How can we bring about democratic change in the People's Republic of China?
In the end, both sides exaggerated the effect of their positions on China's internal conduct. It is clear that the threat of sanctions has little bearing on how the Chinese Communists deal with dissent. Equally, it is clear that increased trade flows and China's economic expansion have not improved human rights practices. Indeed, this year human rights deteriorated significantly as thousands of Falun Gong practitioners, Christians, Tibetan Buddhists and dissenters met with brutal repression, even torture and death.
Proponents of normalized trade with China may be right in arguing that rising economic fortunes promote personal choice and build a middle class that is the bedrock of stable democracy. But economic growth also solidifies entrenched political tyrannies. And while the middle class is a key factor in democratic stability, it is workers and the young who are the bearers of change in dictatorship. This is the lesson of democratic transition ranging from Poland to South Africa, Chile to the Philippines.
And contrary to the argument of House Republican Whip Tom Delay, America's democratic values are not conveyed by American products but by America's democratic beliefs and ideas. Now that economic engagement with China is working to deepen that country's economic transition toward a free market, we must implement a policy that promotes its political transition toward democracy.
The key components of a "Marshall Plan for Chinese Democracy" should include: public diplomacy that promotes debate on political reform in China; exchanges that transfer democratic ideas and values; support for democratic forces; support for the free flow of information, including e-mail and Internet projects and expansion of the China service of Radio Free Asia; and vigorous international moral and diplomatic pressure on human rights.
Public diplomacy initiatives should send to China large numbers of scholars, writers and cultural figures from the United States and from Poland, Hungary and other countries where communism has fallen and economic and political freedom has produced prosperity. They should meet with students, teachers, intellectuals and dissidents to reinforce democratic values and offer them hope in their struggle against tyranny.
Exchanges, including scholarship programs, should be focused on political science and the humanities, arenas in which democratic values and ideas can be most effectively conveyed.
Assistance for democratic forces and democratic exiles should be provided in the form of expanded funding for the National Endowment for Democracy, which works effectively in closed societies.
Support for the free flow of information should include a major book publishing program that makes available writings of democratic activists, political movements and human rights monitors. New technologies should also be a part of the program mix. A project run on a shoestring budget called VIP Reference provides more than 1 million e-mail addresses in China with a 10-page digest of uncensored news and information on China, making it the largest free and uncensored newspaper ever to circulate inside a dictatorship. Such cost-effective programs should be aided and significantly expanded.
One dimension of a strategy to promote democracy in China can be found in the House version of the China trade bill. Introduced by Rep. John Porter (R-Ill.), it provides $65 million for the modernization of radio broadcasting equipment to China and $34 million per year for the China broadcasts of Radio Free Asia and the Voice of America (a significant increase over current inadequate levels).
Congress should follow Porter's lead and add to his initiative a full array of programs aimed at promoting democratic values and strengthening democratic voices inside China.
Clearly, the fate of democracy in China will depend on the Chinese people. But evidence has shown that support for democratic forces and democratic values in closed societies over time contributes to the spread of freedom and helps nurture and develop political leaders, who can guide a transition to democracy. Such programs have worked in Eastern Europe, Latin America, East Asia and parts of Africa. They can also work in China, by reinforcing the liberalizing effect of increased economic engagement.
The writer is president of Freedom House, an organization that monitors political rights and civil liberties around the world.
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