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SPREADING DEMOCRACY - Why don't we start with China?

SPREADING DEMOCRACY - Why don't we start with China?

By BRUCE GILLEY
GLOBE AND MAIL (METRO), Aug 17, 2007

It's time for Canada to get serious about its democracy promotion efforts, and there's no better place to start than China, whose people account for more than half of those around the world who are denied the right to choose their own rulers. A parliamentary report issued in July called for Canada to catch up to its Western counterparts and establish an agency to promote democracy. Such organizations - examples include Britain's Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the Norwegian Centre for Democracy Support - help new democracies overcome obstacles to their success and help authoritarian regimes make the transition to democracy.

Democracy promotion has been practised longest and most effectively by the Nordic countries, but Germany, Taiwan and South Africa are other recent entrants to the realm. The United Nations established a Democracy Fund in 2005, with a total of $68-million (U.S.) pledged by 34 countries so far.

Promoting democracy is consistent with the rights to political participation laid out in the UN's human-rights instruments, to which most members, including China, are party. But it also represents hard-headed realism. Democratic states - even ones struggling to find their feet - tend to be more prosperous, more stable, more co-operative and less prone to war than authoritarian ones. The American misuse of the notion of democracy promotion to excuse its national security operation in Iraq has only increased the importance of countries such as Canada stepping up with genuine efforts of their own.

But where to start? The U.S. think tank Freedom House reckons that 33 of the world's electoral democracies are still struggling to consolidate, while another 45 countries remain autocratic. While strategic and diplomatic considerations will necessarily constrain the choices, the rough rule of thumb, which also informs the lending activities of international institutions like the World Bank, is that efforts should be directed roughly proportional to each country's population. China's 1.3 billion people account for 53 per cent of the people living in authoritarian regimes and 37 per cent of all those living in either authoritarian regimes or unconsolidated democracies, according to Freedom House.

Yet because of fears of damaging commercial ties to China, most democracy promotion agencies (with the exception of the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy) steer clear of China. For example, in the UN Democracy Fund's first full year of operations, 2006, it doled out $36-million for 125 projects. Not one of them concerned China. How could any business that ignored a third to a half of its potential customers be considered a success?

The parliamentary report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, endorsed by both Liberal and Conservative members, offers hope that Canada could make a start. "Canada should carefully consider how it might support democratic transition in China, the stirrings of which are already apparent," the report says. An example of a place to start would be supporting Chinese who are using the courts to push for expanded political rights.

Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of Pierre Trudeau's statement of his intention to sever ties with Taiwan in favour of ties with Beijing - a policy driven by prairie grain sales and the former prime minister's bizarre romance with Maoism. Taiwan is now a thriving democracy threatened by autocratic China. Putting China at the top of a wider agenda of Canadian-style democracy promotion would be a great way to start making amends for 40 years of unprincipled dealings with Beijing.

BRUCE GILLEY is the author of China's Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead.

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