cam : China has not been doing too well from your chicken analogies. Once amputated, now emaciated.

cam : Wonderful article: As you noted it has only been recently that Taiwan has become more democratic. Hong Kong recently had elections but the elected officials were out-numbered by the appointed officials from Beijing. Is Taiwan\'s increased democratic nature fitting with a One China and what could be seen as the Chinese people increasing aspirations economically, and maybe even democratically? Or is the Chinese Government and aspirations for democracy orthoginally opposed?

cam

cam : China has legislated force against Taiwan: if it seeks independence ;

China enacted a law Monday authorizing the use of force against Taiwan if it moves toward formal independence, codifying its long-standing threat to attack the island. The measure could provoke a popular backlash in Taiwan and quickly unravel recent progress in cross-strait relations.

The National People\'s Congress, the ruling Communist Party\'s rubber-stamp parliament, approved the anti-secession law by a vote of 2,896 to 0, with two abstentions, defying U.S. appeals for restraint and strong protests by Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian as well as some of his political rivals.

cam

Scrymarch : Democracy: I think the Hong Kong elections don\'t include a strict majority of appointees, but a number of rotten boroughs, for unusual electorates representing business interests, get the pro-Beijing parties over the line.

I think a democratic Taiwan does put pressure on One China.  In terms of the One China policies of world powers, a rich, democratic, self-governing Taiwan does put mostly moral pressure on the rich world.  Moral pressure counts for a bit but not much, see East Timor.  Especially now that a market-based Chinese economy makes cool stuff that we can buy.

For China itself, the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau are supposed to be the model for future integration with Taiwan.  They PRC leadership have certainly restrained themselves from sending the tanks in, just like they have for normal Chinese cities over the same time period.  They haven\'t scared the money away, and creating a stable environment where people can prosper is certainly a duty of government.  

Beyond that their scorecard is poor.  Their Chief Executive is unpopular, probably inherently - he must have one of the worst jobs in the world.  They tried to muscle through a fairly vicious suppression law, with press muzzling and detention, targeted at Falun Gong and the other perennially unfashionable causes.  To their credit they backed off in the face of mass protests.

The big problem in HK and Macau is that governments everywhere are extremely reluctant to let go of their existing powers.  Hong Kong got its elections very late - rather a conspicuous failure of late British colonial policy.  Now the Chinese Communist Party is supposed to underwrite the transition to fuller democracy, and their instincts or affection for it isn\'t that great.

So far as I can tell the party line on democracy is that it\'s messy and fractious.  Nice to have when you\'re rich but a bit dangerous for now.  My students were pretty interested in the US election when I talked about it.  Bush wasn\'t very popular.

Compared to Hong Kong, Taiwan\'s democracy is very robust and energetic.  And messy too, the recent election was extremely close, and involved an assassination attempt on the President.  It was the sort of election to CCP officials\' hearts flutter and thank Mao they don\'t allow other parties at home.  On the other side of the strait, Taiwan has to be asking itself: if China won\'t let Hong Kong have a real parliament, are they really going to let us have a real army?

Scrymarch : Two abstentions: Bold comrades.  Maybe they were ill.

cam : Hong Kong elections: You are right about the rotten boroughs, I thought I had recalled reading they were appointed. This Economist article describes the set-up ;

Only half of the 60 seats are elected in the way most people in the West would recognise: via (proportional representation) voting in geographical constituencies. The other 30 are chosen via so-called functional constituencies, where limited groups of voters--mostly with business interests and so pro-government--have the right to select MPs. For example, the territory\'s professions, such as teachers, accountants and doctors, each get to elect one legislator. And even among normal voters, there are many who see an increasing need to stay on Beijing\'s good side, given the territory\'s increasing integration with the mainland.

As to the rest of you reply, I have nothing more to say other than thanks for sharing. It is a fascinating insight.

cam

MillMan : " Today\'s Chinese state is coherent: and booming\"

Could you expand on that? Is this in reference to the state level? It\'s not clear to me. The picture I get from my limited readings is that at the local level, especially in rural areas, the communist party behaves as a Medieval king might, taking money from the local populace at will as the citizens have no recourse. This makes me wonder how effective the required indoctrination of the citizens really is.

Cam says you were working there for a year. What regions of the country were you able to observe?

Scrymarch : The Chinese state is booming: Didn\'t notice this comment for a few days ...

Now I think about it \"booming\" could go be interpreted more than one way, but I mean primarily that the economy is growing and the government isn\'t making a mess of it.

As far as coherent goes this is mainly by contrast to the previous century.  No civil war, no serious threat to the power of the Communist Party, including self-inflicted amputations like the Cultural Revolution.  State enterprises owned by the army are being unwound or sold off, so the the state can focus on what in business terms might be called its core competencies.

I was there for about seven months, and I spent a little time reading and getting a working ignorance of the language beforehand.  I\'m fascinated by the place but I\'m not a guru of any kind.  We worked in a regional centre of Shandong province (between Beijing and Shanghai) and travelled around a fair bit on the Inner Provinces tourist trail and saw some justly famous sights.

As for robber baron activity.  I wouldn\'t be surprised if this happened, there\'s a sadly long tradition of it in Chinese government especially under the late Qing and the Republic.  I didn\'t really see any of it.  The Communists cracked down quite effectively on corruption by comparison, though family and friend connections are still crucial, in a way that would be labelled corruption in Australia.

There were lots of stories about corrupt or dodgy officials getting caught and prosecuted in the papers when I was there.  They\'ll even execute high-level officials for white-collar crimes like stealing millions of yuan.

The China that I saw outside my flat was not a straightforward tyranny at all.  I think it can be easy to forget, living in a rich democracy, the other ways that people and their government interact.  There seemed to be a few cases where the discretion of local officials softened the impact of strict laws on the books.  These people are their neighbours, after all.

For instance, on the main road outside the school there was an informal market where farmers from the nearby villages would come and sell their vegetables.  Periodically it would disappear.  It was an illegal market and the police would tell the vendors to clear off.  It would usually clear off about two hundred metres up the road to a less conspicuous spot.

The state will still pry into or force you to change your life if you go against a big policy, like proselytising for a disagreeable organisation, or being a civil servant attempting to have a second child.  Grand liberties are not currently on the table.  But the China I saw left space for small liberties of seeing friends and working hard to build a living.