‘China now has such a big economic footprint outside its borders that we do have to deal with China on these terms,’ says The Legacy of Tiananmen Square author Michel Cormier.

PUBLISHED Aug. 26, 2013, THE HILL TIMES

The nature of the fight for rights and democracy in China has changed, and the West must deal with this new reality if it wants to benefit from the country’s economic investments, says a former CBC/Radio-Canada correspondent who was based in Beijing.

“The whole question of rights and democracy has disappeared from the debate about China,” said Michel Cormier, executive director of news and current affairs at Radio-Canada in Montreal. “The key to China’s economic development was not a free market of ideas, but actually quite a strong political straight jacket. This has given the Chinese model we see today—the fact that China is an authoritarian regime that runs a market economy quite successfully. The reason why we should care about that is China now has such a big economic footprint outside its borders that we do have to deal with China on these terms in a sense.”

Mr. Cormier spoke to The Hill Times recently about his book, The Legacy of Tiananmen Square, published by Goose Lane Editions and recently translated into English by Jonathan Kaplansky. He was posted as a journalist in China from 2006 to 2011, during which he started researching and writing about the changing political and economic environment there. It took him about a year and a half to do the research, which included traveling to New York, Hong Kong, London and Washington among other cities to interview well known Chinese dissidents. It took him another eight months to write the book, originally in French called Les héritiers de Tiananmen.

He said he wanted to write this book to better understand what happened to China since the June, 1989, Tiananmen Square Massacre in which the communist Chinese government sent the military, including tanks, to the public square to break up thousands of students who were protesting for democratic rights. At the time, it was one of the rare moments where foreign media were there to capture the historic moment. Official figures are still disputed, as the Chinese government does not recognize what happened, but hundreds were killed and thousands more were injured.

Mr. Cormier, who was previously a CBC/Radio-Canada correspondent in Moscow and Paris, said the most interesting thing he found while writing the book was how some of those same protesters, now dissidents in Canada or the U.S. or Europe, have come to the realization that the fight has changed. “Dissidents actually have come to the conclusion that the nature of the fight for rights in China has to change, that the Chinese have to be much more patient, that you have to build this one block at a time in a sense and fight for rights that are not as spectacular or fundamental as the right to vote but will maybe deliver more justice for people in the short run that will prepare the country for a greater political reform in the long run,” he said, noting that’s likely why there haven’t been any large mass protests since 1989, despite the widespread movements to overthrow authoritarian regimes in Africa with the Arab Spring.

“There was no democratic spring in China in 2011.The Chinese, unlike the Arab peoples, weren’t hungry for a revolution,” Mr. Cormier wrote in his book. “China had just overtaken Japan as the second-largest economic power in the world; most Chinese were busy trying to get ahead in China’s booming economy. State television did show images of what was going on in Tunisia and Egypt, but it was to remind people how demonstrating for democracy means violence and instability. Very few Chinese were aware that some Arab demonstrators invoked the memory of Tiananmen Square as a source of inspiration. Certainly they were not told that on television. More than 20 years after China underwent its own spring revolution, the memory of Tiananmen Square seems to have dissolved in time.”

The following Q&A was edited for length and style.

You wrote that  “China is the new giant in the world economy, a power house that’s beginning to export its political values and development model to other areas of the globe” and that it started with Tiananmen Square. Can you elaborate on that? 

“Well, after Tiananmen Square, the leaders of China decided that the way to actually make their new kind of pragmatism work was to have a strong authoritarian government. The key to China’s economic development was not a free market of ideas, but actually quite a strong political straight jacket. This has given the Chinese model we see today—the fact that China is an authoritarian regime that runs a market economy quite successfully.

“The reason why we should care about that is China now has such a big economic footprint outside its borders that we do have to deal with China on these terms in a sense. When Chinese companies go abroad and insist on having no unionized workers work for them, this goes back to the Chinese model. We as westerners have to start dealing with this. They are investing a lot in the tar sands out west, and in the mining industry in Canada, but with very different values. That’s why this may affect us. We will have to deal with this Chinese model.”

Should the Canadian government be worried? 

“I think the Canadian government is very aware of this. When [Prime Minister Stephen] Harper went to China for the first time, he said he would not subjugate rights for the almighty dollar, and we’ve seen a more pragmatic shift since then because the Chinese need a lot of national resources. They’re buying a lot outside and they’re investing a lot in Canadian mining and oil, so it’s hard to say no to that kind of investment. Now, how you deal with the rights issue is very awkward for many people and many governments.”

How do we deal with it? 

“I think, and this is part of the book, the big illusion we had as westerners after Tiananmen Square is that we said, ‘Well, this is a missed opportunity with democracy but if we encourage China to adopt a market economy and belong to the big international clubs, if they get the Olympics, all these developments will naturally spawn democracy in China.’ Well, this has not happened. This is where we are now. The other part of this is that I think it was a bit naïve to think that we could impose any sort of democratic model on China. If China democratizes in some fashion down the road, the impetus will come from the Chinese themselves because China is kind of not amenable to any political pressure now. The president of the United States couldn’t say as it did 15 years ago, ‘In exchange for a visit to the White House, liberate a political prisoner.’  This doesn’t happen because China owns part of the American debt. The whole nature of the relationship has changed. This is kind of the suggested thesis of the book: if change does come to China, and a lot of people still do want change there, it will have to come from China and on its own terms.”

What do you think of the Canadian government’s ‘panda diplomacy’ relationship with China now? 

“I’m not in a position to judge that but most Western countries try to find a way to still encourage China on the road to a greater respect of rights while at the same time still do business with China. It’s not always an easy equation to make.”

What is the Beijing Consensus that you talk about in your book? 

“There was the Washington Consensus which was the model based on the fact that you would incite developing countries to have free elections in exchange for investment and aid, and the Beijing Consensus is different. The Chinese are very much involved in Africa and other developing countries and they do not insist on elections or development of rights in exchange for investment or aid. This model is actually starting to crowd out the Washington Consensus which had free reign for a long time.”

What is the political environment like in China now? 

“There’s a new government for the first time in 10 years. We’re still waiting to see whether there will be anymore opening on the political reform front. What’s interesting now is that there’s been a shift in the fight for rights in China. You don’t have that many people going to the streets to demand free elections and the end of the Communist Party’s hold on power. What activists are fighting for now is what you call citizen rights—the rights to education, to health care, to clean drinking water, to the rule of law. The argument is that if you encourage the establishment of civil society, of rule of law, that this eventually is a better guarantee of developing democracy than just clamouring for the right to vote and free elections.”

Why do you think democracy as envisioned by the West is not flourishing there?

“There are a number of reasons. A lot of people think the country’s too big, too many people to actually be governed by an elected government. There’s also the whole tradition of going back to Confucius, of a harmonious society where it’s understood that the rights of the individual are subservient to the rights of the majority, to social harmony. And, of course, China is very wary of any lecture from the West because there was a very difficult relationship for most of the century. Western powers did invade parts of China in the late 19th century so there’s a lot of baggage there that are actually obstacles. But, you know, it’s [also] a very different culture of course. Whether the Western model is the right one for China is very debatable. The whole Western notion of liberal democracy is a lot less appealing or popular now when you look at the history of the invasion in Iraq, intervention in Afghanistan. The Western style democracy is very hard to implement in many cultures. I think this is the big lesson that we’ve learned.”

You talk about how the key to transforming the country is for the government to be more accountable. They need to take responsibility for the corruption and other issues. How likely is it they will do that? Or how sustainable is the current model in today’s society?

“That’s the question. Some China watchers from Harvard and universities like that say the Chinese model has run its course. Since there’s no accountability, there’s been a lot of corruption and this undermines the sustainability of the Chinese model. We don’t know, and trying to predict the future of China is of course difficult. But, the difficulty is also that the Chinese communist government says that China does have some sort of democracy, ‘It’s a socialist democracy,’ and so given the vested interests of the people who are in power, it’s very hard to see that they would naturally give into the demands for major political reform unless they come to the conclusion that that’s the best way or most favourable way for China given its current state. You have a new generation of people who are in power now. They weren’t involved in the Tiananmen crisis. A lot of activists actually say that before China can even have a real debate about what kind of political reform is needed, the government does have to have some kind of amnesty for the activists of Tiananmen, we’ll have to look at this tragedy in the face and actually deal with it. So, you know, the obstacles are numerous for any kind of meaningful debate or reform movement in China right now.”

If they don’t change what does it mean for the rest of the world as China becomes a super power economically?

“Well, I mean, what does it change? China doesn’t have any territorial ambitions. … There is no immediate kind of impact for other countries other than having to deal with a government or enterprises that have very different values.”

What was it like to talk to the dissidents? What did they tell you? 

“It’s really overwhelming because these are the people who have decided to devote their lives to the idea of political reform. Most of them have been to prison willingly to defend this. You know, when you talk to people who have that kind of commitment, it’s always a bit humbling in a sense. One of them, Wang Dan, who was the student leader at Tiananmen said he knew he would go to jail for this, so he prepared. He asked other dissidents what it was like and all of them told him, ‘Even though you’re in isolation, you have to keep talking aloud so you don’t lose the usage of your vocal cords.’ It’s always very humbling to talk to people who now live in exile and have no immediate prospect of going back to their country and who are willing to pay the price for this and who are willing to still remain optimistic about the future of their country.”

What’s the mood like there? Are people afraid of the government or are they just happy with foreign investors and making money? 

“It’s a good question. Most Chinese are just trying to get ahead in this incredibly changing country with a booming economy. The Chinese model is actually getting millions of people in China out of poverty every year and we should not forget that. Most Chinese, unless their land is seized by an entrepreneur who has ties to the Communist Party and loses everything and has no justice, actually are very happy to just try to get ahead. It’s when you are a victim of injustice and you cannot appeal to anybody that people do revolt, whether it’s the parents of children who were killed in badly built schools in the Sichuan earthquake or this man who I interviewed whose house was seized just because entrepreneurs wanted the land to build luxury villas. As long as you keep your head down and you don’t come into conflict with powerful people, you’re okay.”

Should more media be reporting from China today? 

“Well, the more we know about China, the more we understand about China the better, but it’s a big investment, it’s far. We at CBC have a commitment to keep a correspondent in China, but it’s hard. It’s a difficult story to cover but I think it’s very important.”

What do you want readers to take away from your book?

“I wrote it so people get a sense of where China is coming from on that front and what’s left of the reform movement and where this may be heading in a sense. I hope they’re better informed about China and when they actually see stories on the news, that this book will give them a chance to understand a bit better what’s happening there.”