China's Rising Power: Economic Growth vs. Freedom Deficit

Abstract

Our analysis sets out to explain the relationship between economic growth and political freedoms within the context of Chinese domestic politics and foreign policy. The images of China as a rising military power with a growing economy have drawn attention away from the degree to which democratic values and norms have been marginalized in China. The existing literature has typically focused on an increasingly competitive economic globalization that has placed China among the emerging powers of the twenty-first century. The issue of China's surging power is ripe for more probing and systematic analysis. This study contextualizes China's policy toward developing countries, with a special focus on Tibet and Africa, in order to better understand its ramifications for human rights conditions there. What is at stake here is that China's developmental path, which privileges economic growth over political freedoms, is likely to create incentives for states struggling in their transition toward democracy to rely on autocratic styles of development. The international community should insist that Chinese leaders respect the rule of law, democratic principles, and judicial reform. Failure to understand economic tradeoffs and their political dynamics will have profound consequences.