The Dragon’s Rise: Globalization as a tool for authoritarianism in the case of China

The Dragon’s Rise: Globalization as a tool for Authoritarianism

By: Edward Yuan

In 2001, the People’s Republic of China was admitted into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in what would be one of the greatest mistakes of the 21st century. Predicated on mistaken ideas, that the forces of globalization and market liberalization would curb the state’s most authoritarian tendencies, as it had for so many others, the world embraced China into the world trade economy. The upshot, disastrous consequences for not just those who have had their human rights quashed by the Middle Kingdom but also for those that want to do anything about it.

China’s accession into the WTO was preceded by its gaining of observer status to the WTO’s predecessor the GATT or General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1986. The PRC would from then on work to formally join the organization, and it’s successor organization, finally succeeding in 2001.Opposition to China’s acceptance into the World Trade Organization was significant during its 15-year application process, as European members, the United States, and Japan criticized its human rights record. But with the September 11 terror attacks, American opposition dissipated and the other objections largely evaporated as they turned to more pressing matters.

With their admission, China agreed to a tidal wave of reforms from market liberalization to governmental transparency. Other conditions included obligations to protect intellectual property and the opening of key industries, such as telecommunications and finances, to foreign investment and corporations. In essence, China would remove the ever so prevalent government-imposed trade and businesses barriers against foreign business and work to facilitate further integration with the world trade economy. They argued that as China opened to trade, the people would not be satisfied with their situation, the people would surely demand political liberalization to match that of the market.

How wrong they were. Now, it is plain to see that Chinese progress on their many admission commitments is anywhere from non-existent to non-effectual, and with authoritarian tendencies far from curbed. While true that initially China was praised for its efforts at reform, that trend quickly ended as we entered the 2010s. For a foreign corporation to operate in the country today, not only must they do so with a local Chinese partner, to which they must divulge all their intellectual property, but also create a corporation branch of the Chinese Communist Party. Key industries like telecommunications and financial markets remain completely sealed, barring participation from foreign companies and investment. With lagging economic liberalisation, also absent is any sense of political liberalisation as dissidents are imprisoned and prosecuted and censorship remains highly prevalent. Yet despite all of the continued restrictions and barriers to businesses, the 2020 World Investment Report reported that foreign investment in China hit a whopping $138 billion in 2018, only to be dwarfed by $141 billion in 2019. For the sake of comparison, New Zealand, ranked number one in business friendliness, only attracted $1.95 billion and $5.43 billion in the same period. Why? Because, for all their mistaken predictions, they were right about one thing. The money is just too good, but not just for the Chinese, but the West as well.

With massive potential profit to be made in what is the largest untapped market for Western businesses, the money to be made in China has been worth bending over backwards for. They have also become essential to the global supply chain, in the production of the world’s everyday goods. From building devices and the chips that go into them to being the source of rare earth minerals on which manufacturing of electronics depends, even the American defense complex has been an unwilling customer. All of this, the results of globalization, have made China nearly impossible to dislodge from the global trade economy, a position that China has not been shy about leveraging to further their authoritarian agenda. Authoritarian acts such as the mass censorship of western media, routine imprisonment of Journalist and dissidents Chinese and foreign alike, the mass oppression of the people of Tibet and encroachment on the institutions of Hong Kong, and the Uyghur genocide have routinely been ignored by the world for fear of angering the economic behemoth.

This has been the curse of globalization. Having promised open societies would follow the opening of markets, the West acted as if such assumptions had been scientific law, only to discover that those ideals only go so far.

The Arab Spring, the poster child of people demanding democratic rights post-globalization, either been wrought in civil war (Libya) or returned to dictatorial ways (Egypt), with the sole exception being Tunisia. Russia, a fledgling capitalist state after the fall of the Soviet Union, has returned to its adversarial position while being the main provider of natural gas to a pitiful Europe. The Gulf States, with their atrocious records on human rights, remain untouchable, for their immense oil reserves have Western democracies racing to sell them weapons and buy their oil. Globalization has resulted in these authoritarian states gaining a greater capacity to not only oppress their people but seek strategic goals abroad, without fear of tangible consequences from the West. The ascendancy of China is the natural result of a globalizedinterconnected world that is unwilling to hold rule breakers to their commitments provided they have the cash. Globalization has become a tool for the continued oppression of people by authoritarian regimes and will continue to be for as long as the West places wealth and profit, before rights and people.