Then there is China

Then there is China. Thirteen years ago, Francis Fukuyama wrote an essay called "The End of History?" Human political thought, he argued, had stumbled at last through the gates of a Hegelian heaven. Political perfection would forevermore be defined as Liberal Democracy supported by a capitalistic economic system. Published during the summer of Tiananmen, when it seemed that all the world's authoritarian regimes were withering away, the article (perhaps unintentionally) set the tone for an American triumphalism that did not crest until well after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Yet atop the seas of champagne that engulfed the world in those days there floated an ark with so little in its hold, and so much blood on its deck, and such ridiculous Khrushchev-era weaponry, that it seemed barely worth another glance. It is clear now that the vessel did not sink, and that in its hull it carried an answer to, if not a refutation of, Fukuyama's argument. The liberal democratic state, its powers continuously eroded by the immense forces of the modem market, simply leaves too much up for grabs. And grab is exactly what a more cohesive political entity than our own may try to do.

The greatest danger of all may not be that Beijing one day dares try to coerce the West but that the plan to undermine Beijing actually works, that the massive movement of money, goods, and ideas will lure freedom-seeking citizens back to Tiananmen. Revolutions, as we sometimes forget, can turn violent. How long, if violence strikes China, will we have to wait for our shipments of semiconductors and alternators and gaskets to arrive? Might we not find ourselves obliged one day, by the selfsame economic interdependence that was supposed to undermine Beijing, to prop up that regime in order to ensure the proper functioning of our own economy?

After two decades of deregulation, of voting away our few slight powers in exchange for BMWs and bass boats, we may soon discover, like Lear, that our children do not remain grateful for our generosity forever. We soared out of the 1990s convinced that we could inhabit forever our Cisco-style role as the commanders and controllers of an outsourced world. Now, barring a revolution in how we view business, we may be lucky to eke out a few good years as the corporate front end, the marketing department, for China. Unless, of course, Beijing decides to vertically integrate that activity too. ¨

Barry Lynn is the former executive editor of Global Business magazine and a former reporter for the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.

Part 1