ATAs the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) celebrates its 100th anniversary, Western countries are still struggling to define their attitude towards the Beijing regime. Let’s say it right off the bat: the right answer lies in ending Western arrogance and promoting a new emancipatory and egalitarian horizon on a global scale, a new form of democratic and participatory, ecological and postcolonial socialism.
If they stick to their usual posture of lesson-givers and an age-old hypercapitalist model, Western countries risk having the greatest difficulty in meeting the Chinese challenge.
Authoritarian and oppressive, the Chinese regime certainly has many weaknesses. According to Global Times, An official daily, Chinese-style democracy would be superior to the Western-style electoral supermarket, as it entrusts the country’s destiny to a motivated and determined avant-garde, both selected and representative of society – the CCP has some 90 million of members -, and more deeply involved in the service of the general interest than the average Western voter, versatile and easily influenced.
In practice, however, the regime increasingly resembles a perfect digital dictatorship, so perfect that no one wants to be like it. The model of deliberation inside the CCP is all the less convincing as it leaves no trace outside, whereas, on the contrary, everyone can see more and more clearly the establishment of widespread surveillance on social networks, repression of dissidents and minorities, brutalization of the electoral process in Hong Kong, threats to democracy in Taiwan.
The capacity of such a regime to seduce the opinions of other countries (and not just their leaders) seems limited. We must add the sharp rise in inequalities, accelerated aging, the extreme opacity which characterizes the distribution of wealth, the feeling of social injustice which results from it and which cannot be eternally appeased by a few sidelining.
Mixed economy
Despite these weaknesses, the regime has solid assets. When climatic disasters occur, he will have no difficulty in stigmatizing the responsibilities of the old powers, which, despite their limited population (about 15% of the world population for the whole United States, Canada, Europe, Russia , Japan), represent nearly 80% of cumulative carbon emissions since the start of the industrial era.
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