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Showing posts with label The West. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The West. Show all posts

Sunday 19 September 2021

Renovating democracy and the China challenge

To break out of its paralysis, the West needs to take a hard look and address three key challenges



The rise of the populist variant in the West and the rapid ascent of China in the East have prompted a rethinking of how democratic systems work - or don't. The creation of new classes of winners and losers as a consequence of globalisation and digital capitalism is also challenging how we think about the social contract and how wealth is shared. -  Nathan Gardels and Nicolas Berggruen

 http://media.asiasociety.org/video/1901010-Berggruen-Renovating-Democracy.mp4

 



Police officers watch as protesters take part in a rally against Covid-19 vaccine mandates, in Santa Monica, California, on Aug 29, 2021.PHOTO: AFP

Rethinking Democracy, the Social Contract, and Globalization 

 

 
The rise of populism in the West, the rise of China in the East and the spread of peer-driven social media everywhere have stirred a rethinking of how democratic systems work—or don’t. The creation of new classes of winners and losers as a result of globalization and digital capitalism is also challenging how we think about the social contract and how wealth is shared.

The worst fear of America’s Founders—that democracy would empower demagogues—was realized in the 2016 US presidential election, when the ballot box unleashed some of the darkest forces in the body politic. Similarly, in Europe an anti-establishment political awakening of both populism and right-wing neonationalism is consigning the mainstream centrist political parties that once dominated the post–World War II political order to the margins.

Donald Trump’s election and the populist surge in Europe did not cause this crisis of governance. They are symptoms of the decay of democratic institutions across the West that, captured by the organized special interests of an insider establishment have failed to address the dislocations of globalization and the disruptions of rapid technological change. To add danger to decay, the fevered partisans of populism are throwing out the baby with the bathwater, assaulting the very integrity of institutional checks and balances that guarantee the enduring survival of republics. The revolt against a moribund political class has transmuted into a revolt against governance itself.

Because neither the stakeholders of the waning status quo nor the upstarts of populism have offered any effective, systemic solutions to what ails the West, protracted polarization and paralysis have set in. 

The Paradoxes of Governance in the Digital Age

These trials of the West are bound up with, and to a significant extent driven by, two related developments: the growing fragmentation of mass society into diverse tribes fortified by the participatory power of social media, and the advent of digital capitalism, which is divorcing productivity and wealth creation from employment and income.

We argue that these shifts present twin paradoxical challenges for governance.

First, the paradox of democracy in the age of peer-driven social networks is that, because there is more participation than ever before, never has the need been greater for countervailing practices and institutions to impartially establish facts, deliberate wise choices, mediate fair trade-offs, and forge consensus that can sustain long-term implementation of policies. Despite expectations that the Internet Age would create an informed public more capable of self-government than ever before in history, fake news, hate speech, and “alternative facts” have seriously degraded the civic discourse.

Second, the paradox of the political economy in the age of digital capitalism is that the more dynamic a perpetually innovating knowledge-driven economy is, the more robust a redefined safety net and opportunity web must be to cope with the steady disruption and gaps in wealth and power that will result.

To meet these challenges, we propose a novel approach to renovating democratic institutions that integrates new forms of direct participation into present practices of representative government while restoring to popular sovereignty the kind of deliberative ballast the American Founding Fathers thought so crucial to avoiding the suicide of republics. We further propose ways to spread wealth and opportunity fairly in a future in which intelligent machines are on track to displace labor, depress wages, and transform the nature of work to an unprecedented degree.

Where China Comes In


When populists rail against globalization that has undermined their standard of living through trade agreements, they mostly have China in mind. Few reflect that China was able to take maximum advantage of the post–Cold War US-led world order that promoted open trade and free markets precisely because of its consensus-driven and long-term-oriented one-party political system. China has shown the path to prosperity is not incompatible with authoritarian rule.

In this sense, China’s tenacious rise over the past three decades holds up a harsh mirror to an increasingly dysfunctional West. The current US president, who rode an anti-globalization wave to power, relishes battling his way through every twenty-four-hour news cycle by firing off barbed tweets at sundry foes. By contrast, China’s near-dictatorial leader has used his amassed clout to lay out a roadmap for the next thirty years.

If the price of political freedom is division and polarization, it comes at a steep opportunity cost. As the West—including Europe, riven now by populist and separatist movements—stalls in internal acrimony, China is boldly striding ahead. It has proactively set its sights on conquering the latest artificial intelligence technology, reviving the ancient Silk Road as “the next phase of globalization,” taking the lead on climate change, and shaping the next world order in its image. If the West does not hear this wake-up call loud and clear, it is destined to somnambulate into second-class status on the world stage.

This is not, of course, to suggest in any way that the West turn toward autocracy and authoritarianism. Rather, it is to say that unless democracies look beyond the short-term horizon of the next election cycle and find ways to reach a governing consensus, they will be left in the dust by the oncoming future. If the discourse continues to deteriorate into a contest over who dominates the viral memes of the moment, and if democracy comes to mean sanctifying the splintering of society into a plethora of special interests, partisan tribes, and endless acronymic identities instead of seeking common ground, there is little hope of competing successfully with a unified juggernaut like China. Waiting for China to stumble is a foolish fallback.

Unlike the Soviet Union at the time of the Sputnik challenge in the late 1950s and early 1960s, China today possesses an economic and technological prowess the Soviet Union never remotely approached. Whether in conflict or cooperation, China will be a large presence in our future.

It is in that context that we examine the strengths and weakness of China’s system as a spur to thinking through our own challenges. To turn the old Chinese saying toward ourselves, “The stones from hills yonder can polish jade at home.”

Taking Back Control


To set the frame for rethinking democracy and the political economy, we argue that the anxiety behind the populist reaction is rooted in the uncertainties posed by the great transformations under way, from the intrusions of globalization on how sovereign communities govern their affairs, to such rapid advances in technology as social media and robotics, to the increasingly multicultural composition of all societies. Change is so enormous that individuals and communities alike feel they are drowning in the swell of seemingly anonymous forces and want to “take back control” of their lives at a scale and stride they can manage. They crave the dignity of living in a society in which their identity matters and that attends to their concerns. Effectively aligning political practices and institutions so as to confront these challenges head-on will make the difference between a world falling apart and a world coming together.

Critics of globalization argue that nation-states and communities must retrieve the capacity to make decisions that reflect their way of life and maintain the integrity of their norms and institutions, decisions the maligned cosmopolitan caste has handed over to distant trade tribunals or other global institutions managed by strangers. Those decisions, they rightly say, ought to be made through “democratic deliberation” by sovereign peoples. Yet that neat logic ignores the reality of decay and dysfunction we have already noted. Therefore, “taking back control” must, first and foremost, mean renovating democratic practices and institutions themselves.

The Politics of Renovation


The most responsible course of change in modern societies is renovation.

Renovation is the point of equilibrium between creation and destruction, whereby what is valuable is saved and what is outmoded or dysfunctional is discarded. It entails a long march through society’s institutions at a pace of change our incremental natures can absorb. Renovation shepherds the new into the old, buffering the damage of dislocation that at first outweighs longer-term benefits. In the new age of perpetual disruption, renovation is the constant of governance. Its aim is transition through evolutionary stability, within societies and in relations among nation-states and global networks.

In this book, we propose three ways to think about how to renovate democracy, the social contract, and global interconnectivity in order to take back control:

  • Empowering participation without populism by integrating social networks and direct democracy into the system through the establishment of new mediating institutions that complement representative government


  • Reconfiguring the social contract to protect workers instead of jobs while spreading the wealth of digital capitalism by providing all citizens not only with the skills of the future but also with an equity share in “owning the robots.” We call this universal basic capital. The aim here is to enhance the skills and asserts of the less well-off in the first place – predistribution – as a complement to redistribution of wealth for public higher education or other public goods. The best way to fight inequality in the digital age is to spread the equity around.

  • Harnessing globalization through “positive nationalism,” which means an allegiance to the values of an inclusive society instead of nationalistic incantation, albeit tempered by an understanding that open societies need defined borders. It also means dialing back the hyper-globalization of “one size fits all” global trade agreements to leave room for industrial policies that compensate for the dislocations of integrated global markets. To temper the deepening rivalry, even economic decoupling underway between the US and China, we call for a “partnership of rivals” on climate action. If there is not some area of common intents, all else will dwell in the shadow of distrust and lead to a new Cold War, the breakup of the world into geopolitical blocs and worse.


These proposals, of course, do not exhaust the answers to the panoply of daunting challenges we have raised. But they do suggest ways we might think about how to change present social and political arrangements for addressing those challenges. We do not insist that we are somehow the font of all wisdom but regard our endeavor as a point of departure that deepens and expands the debate. Without concrete propositions to criticize and amend, the discourse about change is only an airy exchange that fails to move the needle.

  Nicolas Berggruen and Nathan Gardels are the founders of the Berggruen Institute and the authors of Intelligent Governance for the 21st Century: A Middle Way between West and East (2012). Their latest work, Renovating Democracy: Governing in the Age of Globalization and Digital Capitalism (2019), is the first in a Berggruen Institute series on the “Great Transformations” published by the University of California Press (UC

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Sunday 13 September 2020

Asia’s Journey at 60, what does independence mean, the promise & perils

What does Independence mean for former colonies




Singapore is the exemplar that pulled itself into the ranks of advanced income status by sheer grit and determination.ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI

How its leaders forge cohesion, heal social wounds will be true test of maturity in next 60 years

ON SEPT 16, Malaysia celebrates her 57th national day, having celebrated on Aug 31 the 63rd anniversary of independence from Britain in 1957.

What does Independence mean for former colonies?

It means that a nation is free to choose its own future independent from imperial influence. Lest we forget, colonisation in Asia arrived in the 16th century with Portuguese, Dutch and British pirateers who came, saw and conquered. They did this in the name of their king and Christianity, but it was mostly for their own well-being.

No statistic illustrates this better than the stark fact that India before colonisation in 1700 accounted for 24.4% of world GDP (Maddison, 2007) and by independence in 1947, her share was down to only 4.2% in 1950. Of course, the British left behind the English language, the rule of law and a durable administrative structure that is still being practised in many former colonies.

We should also be grateful that decolonisation (shedding of empires by the European powers) was encouraged by the post-war American administration, which basically did not want any challenges to her dominant status, British cousins or not. The result was that Hong Kong was the last of the colonies to lose her status in 1997. Considering that some Hong Kongers are still waving the Union Jack, colonial nostalgia has not lost all its fans

What matters is what the newly independent countries achieved with their sovereignty. Singapore is the exemplar that pulled herself into the ranks of advanced income status by sheer grit and determination, having almost no natural resources. Myanmar, on the other hand, was richly endowed with natural resources and had one of the best educated elites at independence in 1948. Ruled mostly by the military junta, her growth has been stunted relative to her neighbours.

The Asian Development Bank has just published an excellent book on Asia’s Journey to Prosperity, commemorating 50+ years of its establishment in 1966. The book tracked Asia’s transformation from a post-colonial era of essentially rural Asia to today’s urban and technologically driven region that accounts for roughly half of global growth.

Seen from a 60-year cycle, Asia’s transformation has been world-shattering. In 1960, Developing Asia (ex-Japan) accounted for only 4.1% of world GDP, measured in constant 2010 USD terms. That year, the EU accounted for 36.2% and the United States 30.6% respectively, together 18 times larger.

Japan was already a developed country with 7.0% of world GDP. By 2018, Developing Asia’s share increased six times to 24.0%, on par with the EU (23.2%) and the US (23.9%). This means that including Japan, Asia accounted for 31.5% of world GDP. The global GDP shares for Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and rest of the world were essentially unchanged in the last half century.

In other words, the loss in share of world GDP by Europe and the US between 1960-2018 was largely gained by Developing Asia, of which China was in its own class. China’s GDP grew 84 times over this period, whereas the other three Asian dragons, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, grew between 55 to 58 times. By comparison, over the same period, OECD countries, including Japan and Australia, basically grew eight times. Malaysia is in the upper pack, having grown by 35 times.

The secrets of Asia’s successful transformation deserve repeating. During this period, there was peace and general political stability, with Asian governments being fiscally prudent and willing to invest in infrastructure and people. Asia did not follow the “import substitution” model adopted in Latin America but adopted the Japanese export industrialization route. Development essentially came from a young growing population that shifted out of rural agriculture into urban centres, with pragmatic governments working hand-in-hand with markets to create jobs in new industries and services.

This raised the savings and investment levels significantly above that of the rest of the world. The state took care of macroeconomic stability, education, health and infrastructure, preparing the labour force for foreign and domestic enterprises to propell exports and growth.

Those economies that were most open to technology and innovation, including welcoming foreign investment, grew fastest. Initially, income distribution improved, but in recent years, income and wealth inequalities have widened. Furthermore, climate change issues in terms of weather change, impact on water, food and increasing natural disasters are rising in the social agenda. The geopolitical temperature has also risen with the West feeling more insecure.

Currently, China’s rise is seen as the main geopolitical rival for the West, since she is the West’s largest market, biggest supplier, toughest competitor and rival political model. But not far behind China are India and Asean, both with a culturally diverse, younger population, totalling two billion people and a US$5.8 trillion GDP, about to enter into technologically driven, middle-class income levels.

Both South and South-East Asia are about to enjoy the same demographic dividend as China, but it will take competent governments to ensure that the rise to middle and advanced income will be accompanied by good jobs and fair distribution, particularly in the face of growing protectionism, and decoupling in technology and supply chains.

Asia’s growth must be in cooperation with the West, socially, commercially and technologically. But the greatest risks are the neo-con hawks in the West who are willing to risk war to disrupt Asia’s rise.

Put simply, if Asian growth stalls, the world will lose its growth engine.

The rise of Asia for the rest of the century is neither destiny nor pre-ordained. The West will not sit by to see its leadership erode. But as McKinsey’s useful analyses on the Future of Asia opined, “The question is no longer how quickly Asia will rise; it is how Asia will lead.” Leading in a culturally diverse and complex world is not about fighting, but about how to work together, meaning competing and cooperating at the same time. The greatest Asian divide is not technology, but social polarisation driven by race, gender, religion, ideology and health/wealth inequalities, all exposed brutally by the pandemic.

How a new generation of Asian leaders heal these social wounds and move forward without fragmentation and fighting will be the true test of Asia’s maturity in the next 60-year cycle.

Andrew Sheng is a Distinguished Fellow of Fung Global Institute, a global think tank based in Hong Kong. The views expressed here are his own.

Asia News Network

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Hong Kong youth deceived by West: ‘I go to Yale, you go to jail’ mocks agitator followers

A Hong Kong resident (center) holds the widely circulated cartoon featuring a Hong Kong police officer's back as he stands alone against protesters. Photo: Yang Sheng/GT

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In the past two months, the radical protesters in Hong Kong, who consist of many young people and students who are infatuated with the West, have continuously showed their extremism through cyber bullying and real violence by provoking other residents of the city and people from the mainland, which prompted local experts and even many young students who disagree with them to speak out.

"I go to Yale, you go to jail" is a comment spreading in Chinese social media to mock young radical protesters in Hong Kong willing to be used by radical and foreign forces. The mockery was in reference to Nathan Law Kwun-chung, a main agitator behind the  Hong Kong riots, who has left Hong Kong to study at Yale University, while calling on many of his peers to remain on the streets.

Not only Law, but other masterminds, including opposition politicians Martin Lee Chu-ming and Claudia Mo Man-ching, have refused to send their own children to stand with protesters and conduct unlawful activities. Some of their children have been living overseas or studying at universities in Western countries.

Since June 9, Hong Kong police have arrested 748 protesters for attacking police and many of them are young people.

This is truly sad because many ignorant and naïve young students are obviously being used by agitators and some US politicians who are trying to put pressure on China during the China-US trade negotiations, said Cheung Yuen Sum, a Hong Kong commentator and convener of Hong Kong-based think tank IDEA4HK. "More sadly, they don't admit or realize that they are being used. They are sick."

Patriotic Hong Kong residents pose for photos with the Chinese national flag at Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor on early Sunday morning. The banner reads "Opposing foreign forces' interference in Hong Kong affair! Traitors get out of China!"Photo: Chen Qingqing/GT

Unbelievable ignorance

Law said on his Facebook page that he is just changing place to continue the "fight for Hong Kong." Agitators like him going to Western countries like the US and the UK did not stop inciting trouble but continued to ask politicians of these countries to voice support for them and pressure China.

On Friday, a rally organized by pro-West organizations asking for help from the US and the UK was held at Chater Garden in Hong Kong. Some of the participants went too far to ask the UK to "re-exercise the Treaty of Nanking and Treaty of Tientsin" which were two unjust treaties that the Qing Dynasty signed with the British Empire after the Opium War that allowed Britain to colonize Hong Kong and start selling opium products to China.

In 2014, during the Occupy Central movement, Tang Chi-tak and Hui Sin-tung, two student representatives from Hong Kong, testified to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament, urging their former colonial master to "re-exercise the Treaty of Nanking and Treaty of Tientsin."

Experts said this is hopelessly ignorant, and that these young people didn't read the treaties at all before they made such remarks. They also have no idea about how powerful China is now.

Victor Chan, 33, vice chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Young Commentators, said that many of the Hong Kong young people have no idea what happened in the Middle East and Africa as many countries have already paid the price of Western forces aiding local "democratic movement."

"Have they forgotten what happened in Libya and Syria after the Arab Spring?" Foreign intervention will bring chaos and death, and those young people's ideas are unrealistic and dangerous, Chan noted.

Hijacking others

It's very hard to change the mentality of young Hong Kong people today, as society is divided, and many young people are actively involved in protests.

However, those young protesters are also divided into three groups: a group of core radical protesters who piloted demonstrations; a group of fervent protesters as "dare-to-die troops"; and a group of young students who have been deceived, said Chan Cheuk-hay, president of the HKCT Institute of Higher Education.

For the third group, their views could be easily influenced. "The majority is those young students whose opinions could easily change. The recent attack on a mainland passenger and a reporter at the Hong Kong airport made them reflect on recent protests," he said.

Many young people and students from top universities, like the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, disagree with radical protesters or anti-mainland activists, but they prefer to keep a low profile because they are afraid of being bullied by radical classmates.

Some of those who agreed to be interviewed by Global Times reporters requested anonymity. Michael Wong, 22, from Hong Kong Baptist University told the Global Times that "they [radical students] said they are fighting for democracy and human rights, but they call everyone who disagrees with them and defends the government enemies, and treat them with violence and insults. Is this the democracy they are fighting for?" -  Source link


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