What leads you to think this will be the case?
The west has been trying to spread liberal democracy for over the past 100 years. It is successful in some places, but not in others. There doesn't seem to be magic formula, and as technology disrupts human interactions it feels like existing liberal democracies are at risk.
I want to share your optimism. Orwell's vision of the future being a boot stomping on a person's head forever feels a little too close to being a reality.
I don't think passively waiting for more benevolent masters is a winning strategy.
I think success largely depends on how democracy arrives - we've seen time and time again that forcing it upon a country (whether by military force or the more skullduggerous, CIA kind of force) is doomed to failure. I believe it needs to come naturally, slowly, over time.
However, it's also a common error of the privileged to consign the suffering to wait for a slow, gradual process that results in their entire lives passing by, and those of their children and grandchildren, etc.
It is more likely there will be a contest for power.
It could become violent, though that is unlikely. In that event, I see no reason to ensure like-minded Chinese are sufficiently armed, or at the very least informed. China's path changed when Xi installed himself as dictator for life. It's foolish to ignore that seismic shift.
The Chinese government sustains itself in power through economic growth and nationalism. That then leads to the two most likely factors (in my opinion) to lead to its eventual downfall – (i) if economic growth gets replaced by stagnation or even decline; (ii) a national military humiliation, such as if an attempt to conquer Taiwan turns into a costly failure. And I think either or both factors is likely to happen eventually, but still that could be many decades away. 10 or 20 years from now, the CCP will most likely still be going strong.
On the world stage the focus is on the CCP and China's political regime because it makes selling anti-China campaigns and measures to the public much easier but it is a red herring. If tomorrow the whole of China became a democracy very little to nothing of their key policies and aims would change, the difference would be that the US would have a harder time explaining to us why China is "evil" (the reason being simply that they are getting too powerful for the West).
Is that simply because India is weaker? Or is it because India and the West are closer in values? India has a pluralist political system; China doesn't.
(There are of course some doubts about what direction India is going in given the Modi government, but even given those concerns, India still has far more of a pluralist political system than China does – BJP is in opposition in 7 state legislatures. In China, opposition is illegal.)
But this is irrelevant. In general political regimes hardly matter. The US are best friends with some of the most backward and repressive regimes on the planet, and ruthlessly torpedoed democratic regimes.
It's a matter of interests. India is much weaker than China and is not assertive as a global power. It's not a threat. It also shares interests with the West, not least containing China, with fewer competing interests.
I'm sure that India and the Indian understand China and the Chinese when it comes to the struggle of freeing yourself from foreign imperialism and of fighting your corner.
I think the contemporary US does have a political preference for democratic regimes all else being equal. When the US gets cozy with non-democratic regimes – for example, Middle Eastern states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States – there is usually some other motivation which is felt as more pressing than the desire for democracy – oil, containment of Iran, keeping Israel safe and secure, fears of religious radicalism and terrorism, the fear that if the general populace were allowed to vote for whatever government they want, they'd elect Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood, etc. It is not that the US doesn't care about democracy at all, it is just that sometimes it cares about other things more.
> India is much weaker than China and is not assertive as a global power
The Chinese government has attempted to interfere with Australian domestic politics [0]. Obviously that upsets the Australian government (and many people in Australia), and sustaining the US-Australia alliance requires that the US take Australian upset seriously. Some Australians find it particularly offensive given China's hypocritical preaching about "non-interference". The Indian government doesn't make any comparable attempts to interfere with the domestic affairs of US allies, which is part of why the US and its allies have much better relations with India than with China.
[0] see e.g https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Dastyari#Chinese_influence... https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/beijing-controls-chi... https://www.csis.org/analysis/countering-chinas-influence-op...
No idea why you would say that. China's policy focus would immediately change. Domestically it can no longer afford to focus solely on middle/upper-class growth due to the need to appease the majority of the population still living on low wages. The transparency of the decision making would also cause a lot of domestic policies to be revisited. Currently these decisions are made with the public in the dark. That would no longer be acceptable in a democracy.
On foreign policy and the geopolitical front, China will almost certainly pursue a reset with their neighbours. Whether this results in closer cooperation with the west, or continued antagonism remains to be seen. The Chinese military isn't in the same position as the USSR back in the 90s, and China will not inherit the position as the superpower heading the communist regimes. In any case, it will translate to real changes in how China deals with border issues and military expansion in the South China Sea.
I was focussing on foreign policy and geopolitics, which really hasn't changed much since before the PRC.
For instance their policy in the South China Sea is not something dreamt up by the CCP. The "9-dash line" predates the CCP and the PRC. It dates back to the ROC and as such is still the official policy in Taiwan as well (they keep quiet because they are too weak and don't want to piss off neighbours). What's happened is that China is no longer weak and is now able to reassert itself. In a democratic China it's almost certain that nothing would change in the South China Sea, and that has the full support of the Chinese public.
> Whether this results in closer cooperation with the west
This would not because, as I mentioned, the political regime is a red herring here. The antagonisms are caused by China's growing strength and power. China asserts its interests, which are not aligned with the West's. This is not caused by the CCP, this is the profound geopolitical reality.
What's happening is that a superpower that is not Western (in a general sense of European, Christian culture) is appearing, this is more profound than political regimes, which are actually quite superficial. This has not happened for centuries. People have been conditioned to believe that everyone will align with the West and that being a democracy means aligning with the US, but why would that be? That's just propaganda dating from the Cold War, really.
> it can no longer afford to focus solely on middle/upper-class growth due to the need to appease the majority of the population still living on low wages
They are already doing a lot to "appease" the poorest. Economic growth has benefited them a lot and the government is also doing more to alleviate growing inequalities because they know very well that they have to. They are certainly not focussing on "middle/upper-class growth".
I also don't buy the assertion that China's rise as a superpower is somehow more profound than other countries (such as Japan). That just smacks of neo-orientalist sinicism. China's development is modelled on the same export model as Japan's and South Korea's. The difference being whether other advanced economies are willing to absorb and support that model for the remainder of the time that China needs to pivot before succumbing to the middle income trap.
And to your last point, China's GINI coefficient bottomed out in 2015. It has since been rising.
They are occupying the area to assert their claim. I don't see how that would change. They would not abandon their newly built bases or stop Navy patrols. That would be contrary to their sovereignty claim.
There's a lot of propaganda on this topic and people are falling for it. But the reality is that China is only following a standard, tried and tested, way to assert sovereignty claims: They occupy the place.
The neighbouring countries, including democracies, are doing exactly the same.
> I also don't buy the assertion that China's rise as a superpower is somehow more profound than other countries (such as Japan).
It's obviously different because China is a superpower. Japan and South Korea are not, they are too small, they both fell under the US's dominance, in part by military means. China is directly challenging US's dominance because it's actually larger than the US are and the Us cannot bully them into submission. That's what's new. The US are used to be in charge, like the Europeans used to be before them. A period of absolute Western dominance that started almost 500 years ago is coming to an end.
They can stop expanding military bases in contested areas for a start. That's already a big change in policy.
> A period of absolute Western dominance that started almost 500 years ago is coming to an end.
What makes China a superpower and Japan not? What economic indicators are you using? Or the UK, France, and India for that matter? Nuclear powers that are able to flatten the population centres of countries on command.
Treating 'The West' as a monolithic entity is just the mirror image of neo-orientalism. In terms of alignment, the ideological chasm between the 1st World / 2nd World during the cold war was larger than the gap between China and the other advanced economies currently. China, having reformed its economy, is more similar to Spain, which resolved a lot of its geopolitical problems after the transition to democracy in the late 70s and early 80s.
The only baggage that China has in terms of geopolitics is the constant navel gazing at the 1800s and Qing's humiliation by the colonial powers. This is a Chinese nationalist narrative that is stoked by the party, but one that doesn't resonate at all with the younger generations.
If you believe that Xi Jinping has Chinese’s best interest at heart, and he believes that in 2018 China was still under turmoil that only he can manage to get them through, and that he was still (relatively) young even now. Then it is conceivable he would step down in a few years or so in his 70s. Yes, it’s best if your President can’t change the constitution at will, but that has never been China and the situation might not be that big of a shift
It didn't change. It's foolish to not to acknowledge that communists been in power in China all along.
Hu, and Wen were just very convenient fronts the party let the West, and its populace see, while it was pulling strings from behind, and bidding time for the comeback in force.
The West, its politicians, its generals, its intelligence analysts, and its civil society, have been completely bought into that laughably trivial deception.
I don't think sanction is right, and I don't think sanction does anything good to countries being sanctioned. And I believe when people's living standard rise, every country will be more democratic and fair.
Is China's political system the reason US is not happy about? I don't think so. It was the same political system 10 years ago, 20 years ago. The reason is that China is stronger now. Unless US has a direct influence on China, it will not tolerate a competitor regardless the political system.
Neither country can cripple the economy of the other through sanctions without broad international support. I suspect that in the decades to come, neither nation will command the level of respect required to garner said international support.
Based on what evidence?
I understand you are making a stylized appeal for liberal political change via violence. China's leadership has peaks and troughs of liberalism, and violence there, in the Soviet Union, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran and in many other places around the world was followed more often by a hardening, not a softening, of daily life.
Violence in Hong Kong would delay liberalization and usher a vicious and oppressive crackdown.
> legitimization strategy for political changes that were already in development before the protest started.
Here you appear to know that the real strategy is waiting. Eventually, Xi will die, and it's more likely than not that his successors will liberalize.