Is China’s Model the Right one for Cambodia?

By Sovinda Po*

Khmer Times 

Nov 2, 2017

The 19th Communist Party Congress, held every five years in Beijing, has captured global attention. But little do we know about it.

Essentially, the party congress is about three things: first, leadership, personnel and power; second, ideology; third, political vision.

During the party congress, Chinese president Xi Jinping’s three and a half hour speech has sparked much curiosity about China’s model and its implications on other developing countries.

As China grows, its model seems to be preferable. During his remarks, President Xi noted that China’s successes offer “a new option for other countries and nations who want to speed up their development while preserving their independence” and that offers “Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to the problems facing mankind”.

As Bonnie S Glaser, and Matthew P Funaiole, Director and Fellow respectively at China Power Project of Center for Strategic and International Studies comment, China’s assumption of a US decline, together with Mr Xi’s confidence in China’s future, likely inspires Mr Xi’s unprecedented espousal of China’s development path as a model for the world, especially developing countries.

One could see that China is ready to present a credible alternative to liberal democracy. Anyway, what is China’s model?

Zhang Weiwei, a former interpreter for the late Deng Xiaoping and director at the Center for China Development Model Research of Fudan University, posits that the model needs to be understood in different dimensions.

While not explicitly defining the term “China’s Model”, he states: “In the political domain, China has created a model that can perhaps be summarized as “selection+election”.

Selection is largely based on meritocracy and this model can compete with the Western model of relying solely on popular elections Since China put forward the concept of the socialist market economy in 1994, China is the only major economy that has not experienced the kind of financial crisis, debt crisis and economic crisis that have distressed so many countries.

Socially, the China model is about highly positive interactions between society and the state, differing significantly from the Western model of society contesting the state. Chinese society today is extremely dynamic, but also in reasonably good order.

However, this is not to become a model yet, as Mr Weiwei says that China is the world’s largest laboratory of political, economic, social and legal reforms in the world.

China’s model could be seen as a development in process, not the end product.

In contrast, as the author of the influential book “The End of History and the Last Man”, Professor Francis Fukuyama says that whatever China’s success in economic growth and power over the past three decades, the insufficient rule of law in China’s political system bears much vulnerability that will become more evident as the economic engine slows down.

As Professor Fukuyama advises, China needs to make a transition from rule by law to rule of law, which needs to apply not only to ordinary citizens and to lower levels of the government, but to the Party itself to ensure stability and sustainable growth down the road.

It seems that China is on its way toward strengthening the rule of law. As Jamie Horsley in her strategy paper “Will Engaging China Promote Good Governance”, published by Brookings Institute, argues, Chinese leadership has come to regard law as essential to addressing the complex issues and diverse interests it faces, vowing to build a more law-based transparent, participatory and accountable government, to enhance both its effectiveness and its legitimacy.

She adds that Chinese citizens are using these new governance institutions to take better control of their lives, participate in decision-making, assert their rights and press for further improvements.

However, the 19th Communist Party Congress shows that Mr Xi’s power consolidation is augmenting and that is in contradiction with its governance reform.

The CCP dominates the state structure it leads, including the government, the legislature and the judicial system, and it seeks to control state and non-state action through legal and extra-legal mechanisms that run in parallel.

China’s modernization process is full of contradictions and paradoxes and the Chinese party-state continues to fall back on traditional repressive measures when confronting real and perceived challenges to its authority.

While China’s model can offer Cambodia, including other developing countries, some governance lessons, the model itself is still paradoxical. To duplicate it blindly will generate more disastrous effects than benefits.

Cambodia should look back at its history to learn its own lesson when attempting to copy the development model from other countries. It is worth remembering that Cambodia under Pol Pot’s leadership practiced the “Great Leap Forward” which was back then the Mao Zedong’s revolutionary concept.

Then Cambodia saw all most two million casualties. Still, there are some lessons Cambodia can learn to do and not to do from China’s model.

On the political dimension, more or less, the model seems not to work well in the Cambodian context, and democracy and the rule of law are the way forward. As Kongkea Chhoeun, a PhD candidate at The Australian National University, argues, Cambodian political institutions became more inclusive with the introduction of Western-style electoral democracy in 1993, but the current political situation of using a combination of laws, courts and security forces to eliminate the Cambodia National Rescue Party ahead of the 2018 national elections has failed its people.

Some analysts have also warned that the current political game played by the ruling party may provoke revolt against the government and create a political crisis.

The government should encourage national unity, promote fair and democratic multi-party elections, strengthen democratic institutions and preserve the rule of law that they remain the only hope for the ordinary Cambodian people.

To do that, political will by the top politicians is needed.

*Sovinda Po is a graduate student in International Relations at the School of Advanced International and Area Studies, East China Normal University, Shanghai. His articles have appeared in The Diplomat, East Asia Forum, New Mandala, IPP Review, Australian Institute of International Affairs, The Leiden International Review and UC Occasional Paper Series.

(http://www.khmertimeskh.com/5088800/chinas-model-right-one-cambodia/)