James Traub at Foreign Policy recently wrote an article on America no longer being free. This has prompted some in the China watcher community to wonder whether the U.S., both as a polity and a dominant builder of international order, is losing its attractiveness for others to follow and whether the status quo would help promote China.

Here is my take on these issues, together with some theorizing and a small prediction.

Re: Is the U.S. model no longer attractive? Will the China model become more attractive?

Other than some first-generation Chinese immigrants, very few people in the developed world would find the China model an attractive alternative even if the current ruling values in America completely collapse.

On top of that, the “U.S. model” is continually evolving. If “Western” values à la traditional European Enlightenment no longer support American primacy, I cannot think of why something else will not come out to serve that purpose better.

Just to be clear, that “something else” re America’s future on the world stage can come within the liberal idea. It may well be the case that it addresses the limits and shortcomings associated with traditional European liberalism.

Re: Why do many Chinese people living in the West oppose the idea of having liberal democracy in China, even if they themselves have seen firsthand how democracy works and chosen to stay in it?

There are certain knee-jerk reactions to those growing up in mainland China when it comes to the “motherland” (祖国). Think, for instance, of their often subliminal feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem associated with “guochi” (国耻, ethnic-national shame in connection with the Middle Country/Qing Dynasty’s downfall when confronted by Western powers in the 19th century), or of their attitude toward separatism in Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, and most recently, Hong Kong.

The CCP has successfully exploited these narratives (e.g., using meticulously designed propaganda and “patriotic education”) to shore up its legitimacy. And together with China’s information decoupling (e.g., WeChat and Weibo accounts catering to overseas Chinese students, most of whom do not read from local sources), the majority of Chinese cannot recognize how subconsciously they are under the influence.

Such ideas as “democracy is too risky” and “the Chinese people are not ready for democracy” are also among those pumped into their heads. As a result, liberal values that are learned even after moving to the West cannot easily override these conditioned responses from their younger selves’ own experience. Many observers have noted that even reasonable Chinese people would suddenly become irrational when certain buttons are pushed.

Re: Various forms of democracy exist—even between the U.S. and the U.K., there are many differences in their respective systems. China should have a democratic system that is different from the rest of the world.

“Democracy,” “freedom,” “equality of rights,” “liberty,” … one can call it whatever they like. But to quote U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, “I know it when I see it.”

Sure, for the U.S. (presidential), U.K. (Westminster), France (semi-presidential), or a presumably genuinely democratic system in a future China, each can have vastly different arrangements on the cultural, social normative, and political functional levels. But what I see is that all are founded on the same type of liberal social contract and source of political truth (i.e., clashes of varied ideas, as reflected in votes, protests, and political debates), whose origins can be traced back to the works of Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau—regardless of whether a theory of “natural rights” is invoked.

In contrast, the “democracy with Chinese characteristics” system under the CCP is a completely different animal, and it is not compatible with the above.

That being said, unless there is some serious structural change on the societal level—something on the scale of a civil war or a revolution—it seems unlikely to me that China would transition to a genuinely democratic system in the foreseeable future.