August 2024

EDITORIAL – AUGUST 2024 – POTENTIAL GAINS OF ‘GREY’ GOVERNANCE

Dancing with many partners

Two days after last month’s assassination attempt against Donald Trump, the Chinese Communist Party began its Third Plenum in the western suburbs of Beijing.

Over the following days, the world’s two most powerful nations showed us all the traits that contrast autocracy and democracy.

Each system has its strengths and weaknesses, shaped by the fundamental principles upon which they are built. Their differing styles of governance reflect deeper values about power, freedom, and the role of the state in society

What unfolded gives us a front row examination of the battle for the heart of the global order.

Seconds after surviving an assassination attempt, a presidential candidate won admiration for punching a defiant fist in the air shouting ‘Fight, fight, fight’. 

The picture went viral in a way that gave him a bump in the polls, with talk of a certain electoral win in November.

Governments around the world are preparing.

What, for example, is to be done if the United States reduces its defence commitments in Europe, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific?

Then, only a week later, America’s ageing leader announced he would pull out of the electoral race. His spirited female deputy made it clear she wanted to take over.

An opposite bump in the polls indicate she, too, has a good chance of winning.

Social media and talk shows are now awash with compelling, edge-of-the-seat stories as rival campssling fury and insults at each other.

In an openness that would never happen in China, these two opponents laid out strikingly different views on the type of country America is and the direction it should take.

No-one knows who will be in charge next year.

The nature of American democracy with its backdrop of violence, open debate, and public humiliation creates an atmosphere of unpredictability and antagonism that impacts families, businesses, the military and more.

In contrast, the nature of Chinese autocracy with its secrecy, closed door decision-making, single party control and loyalty to one leader aims to instil stability and predictability, allowing people and organisations to plan and get on with their jobs and lives.

One encourages the individual’s involvement in politics; the other discourages or bans it.

As Trump and Harris loudly argued over America’s future, some 370 Chinese Communist Party delegates devised China’s five-year path in the drab conference rooms of a secure military hotel – no pictures, no opposing views, no public discussion.

President Xi Jinping was hailed as the guiding light of the nation. By removing term limits in 2018, he can now stay in the top job as long as the party allows, or he wants.

He heads more government agencies than any leader since Mao Zedong, giving him power to move against high-level officials whom he doesn’t trust and create a closer-knit group of loyal advisers.

Democratic systems are designed for checks and balances which, in autocracies, are dealt with far away from scrutiny.

America shows that democracies can be tumultuous and prone to sudden changes. But this system has delivered its current wealth and power.

China has shown that authoritarianism might offer stability and raise living standards. Its poverty reduction is second to none in the developing world. Yet the cost is political freedom and adaptability, and it remains nowhere near having the wealth, power and imagination of America.

These are two bookends of governmental systems.

Between them lies an array of nuanced alternatives constantly being tested to suit a nation’s culture, level of development and geography.

It is in this grey zone that most of the world lives.

Those leaders from the US and China need to take note of their responsibilities when talking up rivalry and war.

Despite fiery electoral debates, there is general agreement in America on what is referred to as the ‘China threat’, emphasising the nation’s penchant for a common enemy.

Behind its closed doors and through its controlled media, China has been singing a similar tune against America.

It is time that both nations acknowledged that their biggest responsibility is to inject hope, not fear. Their goal must be not to win against each other but to avoid either a cold or hot war that reduces generations to poverty and destitution.