How Chinas liberals are feeling the Trump Effect
By Wang Lixiong January 19 at 2:15 PM
Chinese like me — pro-democracy liberals — have been pushing for years to end the one-party dictatorship in our country. Most of us long regarded the U.S. political system as a model. Now, with the presidential election of Donald Trump, a man whose grasp of both democratic concepts and ethical norms is questionable, we have been forced to ask some hard new questions.
Our first reaction to the unsettling news was to shift our gaze to aspects of the U.S. system other than its presidential elections. We comforted ourselves by noting that the constitutional separation of powers can buffer the effects of an erratic president, that U.S. civil society remains strong and independent, and that another election will come along in four years.
But just as we were trying to adjust, Trump surprised us. He accepted a phone call from Tsai Ing-wen, the president of democratic Taiwan, and rejected Chinese government complaints about doing so. He brought in advisers who seem ready to take a harder line with Beijing. All of this suddenly made it seem that Trump might be good for Chinese democracy. Some of my fellow liberals have gone so far as to hope that Trump’s flirtation with Russian President Vladimir Putin might signal that he is thinking about aligning with Russia in opposition to China’s rulers — rather as President Richard Nixon, four decades ago, sided with Mao Zedong against the Kremlin. These friends hope that such pressure might contribute to a collapse of China’s authoritarian rule, just as the Soviet regime collapsed.
Personally, I am agnostic about Trump’s private thoughts, and I feel that my liberal friends in China make a mistake when they invest their hopes in the unseen motives of a leader-in-waiting. In recent decades, we watched several times as new strongmen rose in Beijing; in each case we hoped they would loosen the system, and each time we were disappointed.
more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/01/19/how-chinas-liberals-are-feeling-the-trump-effect/?utm_term=.69f2acae483a&wpisrc=nl_popns&wpmm=1
