Taiwan’s Strategies towards Human Right Issues in China (Part I)

It will be necessary for China to legitimate its rule by securing human right, and the Chinese government should not abuse human right in the name of economic development or national security.

China’s developmental strategy has shifted from the “peaceful change” vs. “anti-peaceful change” in the early 1990s, to the “Washington Consensus” vs. “Beijing Consensus” in the 21st century. It implies that the Chinese government has become more and more active in its foreign strategies both in arguments and actions. Different from China’s previously passive “anti-peaceful change,” China is now on the initiative to propose its “Beijing Consensus.”

So far China has exploited multilateral frameworks such as Boao Forum, East Asian Summit, Asia-Europe Meeting (AEM), and Asian-African Conference to market its own developmental model. The Chinese government claims that its “Beijing Consensus” could become a new developmental paragon and beat the “Washington Consensus,” which emphasizes economic liberalism and democracy. In other words, China has turned to the new posture of so-called “peaceful competition” and “peaceful rising,” so as to re-shape its national developmental strategy in the 21st century.

Ideology is the biggest difference between the “Beijing Consensus” and the “Washington Consensus.” The former emphasizes authoritarian rule, while the latter highlights democracy. The Chinese government has tried to justify its authoritarian rule with the “Beijing Consensus” argument that allows it to continue the anti-human right actions at home, such as suppressing the social discontent and cracking down on political dissents.

The “Beijing Consensus” claims that economic development is the only goal, and for this purpose authoritarian rule is much useful than democracy is. The Chinese government might acknowledge the relevance between democracy and economic development, but it also believes that there still exist different moral realms. In my view, although it is still debatable whether authoritarian rule or democracy would work more efficiently for economic development, what undisputable is that human right is guaranteed under democracy.

We should recognize that economic development itself is not the purpose, but raising living standards is. The “Beijing Consensus” therefore makes a mistake, since its aim is to develop economy at the cost of human right completely and thus misunderstands which should be the purpose and which is the means for it. However, we are not saying that China should develop its country according to the “Washington Consensus,” but China’s development should be based on its people’s needs. It will be necessary for China to legitimate its rule by securing human right, and the Chinese government should not abuse human right in the name of economic development or national security.