The Munk Debates Podcast - Be it Resolved: China’s ability to defeat Covid-19 proves its system of governance is a better model than liberal democracy

Episode Date: June 24, 2020

COVID-19: Is China's system of governance better than liberal democracy?On this episode of the Munk Debates Podcast, Chinese scholar Zhang Weiwei and Oxford professor Timothy Garton Ash argue the motion Be it resolved, China's ability to defeat Covid-19 proves its system of governance is a better model than liberal democracy.SOURCES: CNBC, CNN, PBS Newshour, Fox News, Bloomberg News, BBC, NDT Television.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I think it's time for this toxic binary zero-sum madness to stop. We're not an imperial power. We're a revolutionary power. We are no longer in a world where you can plot out moves statesman to statesmen like a chessboard. You don't know anything about my background to where I came from. It doesn't matter to you because fundamentally I'm a mean white man. We can't do this to the next generation because America will cease to exist. Welcome to the Monk Debates podcast. Every episode, we provide you with a civil and substantive debate on the big issues of the day. Free of spin, focused on the facts, and animated by smart conversation to arm you, the listener, with enough information to make up your own mind.

Today's debate, be it resolved, China's ability to defeat COVID-19 proves its system of governance is a better model than liberal democracy. Hello, I'm your moderator, Rudyard Griffiths. Well, citywide lockdowns and restrictions on the movement of over 400 million people, mass quarantine centers and surveillance measures using facial recognition technology and drones, and COVID-19 testing on a skill not achieved

by any other nation globally. President Xi Jinping is vowing victory over the coronavirus in China and said that the outbreak of the epicenter in Wuhan is basically curbed. By combining the strengths of central planning with a strong sense of social order and the dynamism of the free market all in service of fighting the pandemic, Beijing believes that its model of government has proven itself once and for all to be a compelling alternative to traditional liberal democracy. China's critics respond that China's success has come at too high a price.

Oh, well, look, a lockdown is what they did in Wuhan, China. And we're not in China. And we're not in Wuhan. I don't believe it would be legal. I believe it would be illegal. I don't believe you can say you cannot leave the state of New York or the state of New Jersey or the state of California. They claim that censorship, arbitrary detention, corruption, and the denial of core rights

and freedoms are weakening China from the inside out. and masking its slide into authoritarian government. Rather than being a guide to the future, they argue that exporting the China model will give new impetus to autocrats and dictators at a huge cost to human freedom. On this installment of the Monk Debates podcast, we challenge the essence of these arguments

by debating the motion, be it resolved, China's ability to defeat COVID-19 proves its system of governance is a better model than liberal democracy. arguing for the motion is Zhang Wei Wei, director of the China Institute at Fudan University in Shanghai. Arguing against the motion is Timothy Garten Ash, professor of European studies at Oxford University and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Weiwei, Timothy, welcome to the Monk Debates podcast.

Great to have you both on the program. Great to be with you. Great. Nice to see you. While I'm really looking forward to this conversation, the ability to be able to be. for us and more importantly, our listeners, to spend this time with both of you to tackle and address, I think, an issue that is top of mind for many people around the world. Does the Chinese response to COVID provide a further important test proof that the Chinese model, its system of government, is in fact superior to liberal democracy, as we've seen,

many liberal democratic governments really struggling right now to rein in the spread. of COVID within their populations and within their borders. So let's dive into this debate. What we're going to do is put two minutes on the clock for each of you for your opening statements. Wei Wei, you're arguing in favor of our motion today, be it resolved this pandemic and China's response shows that its model of governance is superior to liberal democracy. So let's hear your opening remarks. And then we'll have Timothy responding kind. Please take us away. You know, essentially, the China model in fighting COVID-19 is based on this overall idea that people's lives matter most.

People's lives come first before economic and commercial interests. As a result, China has made all its efforts possible to save each and every life to the maximum possible and have succeeded more or less. In contrast, from our point of view, the Western model is essentially about business and commercial interest. And if you look at the human cost, the destitute of the United States, by the end of May, it's already 22 times that of China in absolute terms. China population is four times and more larger than the U.S. population. As a result, if in per capita trends, today China is at least 100 times safer than United States, safer from COVID-19 related deaths or infection.

And secondly, China model is about a kind of what we call people's war, whether from top down or from bottom up, at each level of society, people are united, mobilized, determined to fight, the disease. Closely, almost half a million Chinese medical staff were dispatched from different parts of China to Wuhan to Hogeby

province, the hardest hit region in China. And then over two million volunteers were mobilized to really protect their neighborhood, their villages, their whatever workplace.

If you were there in China during that to months, you were touched each every day by this kind of ordinary people, their sense of sacrifice, their sense of, it's our homeland, we must defend it. And thirdly, China Maud is about science and technology. At each every level, at each every way, the Chinese put emphasis on sciences and respect scientists and their conclusions. And then if we look at the opinion surveys, the latest one is from the Guardian's report, Democracy Perception Index.

They surveyed many people in 53 countries. Only three of them consider the United States did better than China in fighting the COVID-19. The rest think China has done better or much better. And in this survey, 95% Chinese think the performance of the Chinese government is very, good. So that's the highest among all the countries have surveyed. Another survey is the EPSO survey 2019 or last year. The question very simple. Do you think your country is on the right track?

In the case of China, 91%. In the case of UK, 21%. In the case of France, 20%. That's all for my short introduction. Thank you. Thank you, Wei Wei, for those opening remarks. I'm going to now turn it over to Timothy, who's arguing against the motion, against the assertion that China's seemingly at this point successful response to the pandemic shows that its model of governance, as Weiwei has just explained it, its social aspects, its economic aspects, its focus on public health is somehow superior to liberal democracy. So Timothy, thank you for coming on the program. Let's have your opening remarks. Well, it's a great pleasure to be debating with Zhang Wei Wei, and there's a very interesting

conversation to be had about the relative merits of the Chinese system and Western liberal democracies. I'll try to make my introductory two minutes, perhaps slightly shorter than Wei Wei's two minutes, but let me remind you that the motion before us is China's ability to defeat COVID-19 proves its system of governance is a better model than liberal democracy. And that seems to me, to be frank, an absurd proposition for at least three reasons. First of all, because we haven't yet defeated COVID-19. As we speak, there's a new outbreak in Beijing, and half of Beijing is under lockdown. So we haven't defeated it.

Secondly, because while it is perfectly true, and I would happily acknowledge, that in the later period through February, March, there was a really important, of the apparatus of an authoritarian system to control, to lockdown, to test, the fact that the rest of the world is struggling with this deadly virus is unfortunately due to China. We don't know exactly where it came from and how, but what we do know is that it came from China. And the fact that it came from China and spread from China is a failure of your governance system. Moreover, in the crucial early weeks, late December through January, in classic authoritarian or indeed totalitarian fashion, what this system did was to deny to try to shut up people

who pointed out that there was a deadly virus on the way. The name of Dr. Lee Wenliang, who subsequently died of the virus, should stand for many. and allowed. I mean, I have the detailed chronology here on my iPad in Wuhan, denied, said it was mostly a mild condition, and then allowed large public gatherings to go take place, particularly allowed people to travel over Chinese New Year, and that is actually what has given the rest of the world this deadly virus. And most importantly, in our context, which is about the Chinese system versus liberal democracy, No one is going to pretend that the United States under Donald Trump handled this well.

They handled it disastrously. Few people will pretend that Britain under Boris Johnson handled this well. They've handled it very badly. But some of the countries in the world which have handled it best of all are, in fact, democracies. Wayway talked about respect for science. Chancellor Angela Merkel knows a great deal more about science than President Schia. Xi Jinping. She is a scientist and she used her scientific knowledge to give a very impressive performance in Germany. The most impressive countries, bar none, are South Korea, a democracy,

New Zealand, a democracy, and most interestingly, Taiwan, a Chinese democracy, which handled it so impressively that in a country of 24 million people, we have had so far just seven deaths. So Britain was somewhat over 60 million has more than 40,000 deaths. 24 million people, only seven deaths. Hugely impressive, discipline, testing, use of technology in a Chinese democracy. So there is indeed a Chinese state that has handled COVID-19 very well, but it's a Chinese democracy and not the Chinese dictatorship. We look now at a COVID-19 success story.

Taiwan is just off the coast of mainland China. Millions travel between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland. Johns Hopkins University had predicted that Taiwan would have the second most COVID-19 cases in the world. But today, there are 80 countries and territories with more than Taiwan's 329 cases. So Weiwei, let's came to. off our three-way conversation by having you address this specific point of Taiwan and why that isn't an important proof point that in fact democracy is not only a democracy, but a Chinese democracy culturally, has excelled at addressing this pandemic.

I will come to this point by point because in Taiwan's democracy, I said that many times It's a typical case of failed and poor quality democracy. At this particular moment, over 2 million Taiwanese, Taiwan has a population of 23 million, close to 24 million. They live, study, work in the Chinese mainland. China gave its really trade surplus, otherwise Taiwan's economy will be hit badly. So I'm not at all word about eventual unification.

It's not East Germany with West Germany. China is 10 times even more stronger than Taiwan. China is different countries, huge civilizational states, the size of roughly 100 average European states put together. So if we put aside Hubert, Wuhan, because these two places encounter the sudden attack, all of a sudden, unprepared, for the other provinces, I would say they have all done virtually much better than these Western democracies and this the countries, regions you mentioned just now.

You look at the Fujian province, opposite Taiwan, much larger population than Taiwan, but only one deaths. You look at Georgia province, a much larger population than Taiwan and then South Korea, only one death. You look at New Zealand, my goodness, it's one-fifth of Shanghai's population. It's five million only, but 22 deaths, Shanghai one deaths. And concerning the origin of disease and so-called spread from China,

indeed there are no evidence whatsoever that spread from China. You have to check facts and give evidence. If you check this patient zero in UK, it's from other parts of Europe. Patient zero in the United States is from Europe. Patient zero in Australia is from United States. Patient zero in France is likely to be from northern Paris. So it's more likely that, you know, the disease occurred suddenly more or less simultaneous in different parts of the world. And Chinese may be arguably the third discovered and determine the nature of the disease.

Now, concerns the whole argument about democracy versus authoritarian regions, I strongly advise Professor Ash to change this paradigm a bit. I would often argue, you know, it's because we have different definition of democracy. In your case, more about multi-party system, one person, one vote. To my mind, this is at best procedural democracy. It had nothing to do necessarily with real and substantial democracy. So let's discuss another paradigm called good governance versus bad governance. Good governments can take the form of Western democracy, liberal democracy model, can also take other forms of political systems.

China is a good case. And to my mind, if you really will have to discuss democracy, we have to focus on definition. I think good governance is a real democracy. Okay, let's go in that direction, because I think that's an interesting way to kind of open this up and expand a bit just beyond the pandemic to talk about this tension, Timothy, that Weiwei is bringing out here between a kind of a procedural approach to governance, one in China, that there are laws, there is the rule of law, there are procedures in place that. structure or relationship between the individual and the state versus representative democracy.

And arguably, representative democracy has amplified some of the tensions and pressures around this pandemic. I think of the controversy around mask wearing in the United States, which kind of seems absurd. But now this privileging of the representative function of democracy has turned something that should be a public health no-brainer into seemingly a legitimate policy debate. Let's have you respond to that. There's a great old Chinese proverb, seek truth through facts, which I hope we both agree on. I think it is a pretty well-established fact that the virus came from China. But to adjudicate that claim, I hope we could all agree on an independent international commission

to investigate fully exactly what happened and try and prevent it happening next time. Just a couple more words on Taiwan can this is a really important case. When you mentioned unification, I think it's important to clarify that you mean by that unification with the free voluntary consent of the people of Taiwan. Well, the opinion polls in Taiwan are telling us a very, very different story. A majority of Taiwanese actually now identify as Taiwanese rather than Chinese. So I think history is going in the other direction. So that's an important point to make, that it should be with the freely expressed consent

of the people of Taiwan, if it ever comes about. And that takes me to the democracy point, rugged. Simplest definition of democracy is a system in which the people can change their government. In that sense, however imperfect, Taiwan is a democracy. and the People's Republic of China is not. If you could tell me the name of the leading opposition candidate against President Xi Jinping in the last election, I'd be glad to hear it. Right?

So it's not in that really elementary and very important sense. A democracy, it doesn't have freedom of speech. It doesn't have the possibilities of deliberative democracy. As we see in the case of the really awful things that are happening to Hong Kong, the introduction of the national security law, the arrest of exemplary Democrats like Martin Lee, the Chinese system and authorities are actually extremely nervous, even about very limited expression of a will for democracy and South government. But beyond that, Radyard, to your point, I think it's completely implausible to argue

that it's intrinsic to the nature of representative democracy that states will handle these things badly. Not the case at all. There are many democracies, as I've said before, which have handled them extremely well. Why? Because handling a pandemic depends on a high degree of social trust and social self-discipline. That's the only way you control it, right? Like people be willing to have the app, willing to get tested, willing to self-isolate if need be. And actually a democracy like Germany and indeed like South Korea has been absolutely excellent precisely in winning and securing social trust and support without coercion because the Germans have elected Angela Merkel and they absolutely trust her when she tells them they have to stay at home. So I don't think for a

moment that one can make a causal connection between the terrible story of what's happened with COVID-19 in the United States and some sort of general weakness of representative democracy. Wait, do you want to come back on this point about this perceived strengths of a procedural system? I say the Western liberal democracy have three genetic flaws. Really, I doubt very much they can improve itself. Number one, this assumption that human beings are rational, they cast a rational vote. I'm sorry, not with. the involvement of money, with the social media, the populism, we're not able to control. Fired up over continuing lockdown. Right now, Arizona, the latest to experience protests. These

at Phoenix right now, where they look a lot closer than six feet together, don't they? Now, the protesters are saying enough is enough. People want to go back to work they can. That's a huge challenge for Western democracy. We can handle that. West democracy. We can plan for next three, five years and even next generation, West model cannot plan for that. Second defect is what I call rights, absolute. Freedom, liberty, you know, you cannot. If have a lockdown, we will break this in the name of freedom. In Chinese culture, we suggest very humbly, but convincingly,

there must be a balance between individual freedom and individual responsibility. Otherwise, a society cannot cope with the coming challenges in the 21st century, whether it's a virus or natural disasters. And number three is always about prestigious changing government. For instance, gun control is a problem in the United States. You cannot do anything about it. You have no way to fix. You need to revise the constitution. But you cannot even try to do that, given the current political context.

So this really, all this handicapped in Western liberal democracy. I feel that the justices that I am going to appoint, and I've named 20 of them, they will interpret the Constitution the way the founders wanted it interpreted. It's all about the Constitution and so important, the Constitution, the way it was meant to be. So, wait, these are really good key points. I'm glad we're getting to this because we're talking about democracy writ large. And I think that's just a real treat for our listeners. So Timothy, could you respond to those three points? Because there are three interesting criticisms. One, that Western democracies are locked into these kind of ossified constitutional structures that prevent them from making meaningful reform. Second, they have this tendency, this inclination, hardwired into them to privilege individual liberties over collective restitution. responsibilities. And third, there's a kind of an inherent chaos in their term elections that don't allow them to plan forward, five, 10, 15 years, four generation. Those are three important critiques that Weiwei has surfaced here. I'd love to get your reply to them.

With great pleasure. So to take the three points, what you describe as a kind of constitutional rigidity is a problem particularly in the United States. It is a problem. It is a problem. extraordinary that the US system is still struggling because of constraints that were placed in the Constitution two and a half centuries ago. But there are many, many other Western democracies. In fact, most other Western democracies which are constantly changing and improving their systems. The Norwegians have several times changed their constitution, West Germany too.

Secondly, on individual freedom versus collective goods, which is, of course, an old argument which goes all the way back to Karl Marx and a socialist critique of bourgeois democracy. What I will say on this is that we in the West have experienced a major crisis of liberalism and of liberal democracy, which goes back in a sense to the triumph of liberal democracy in and after 1989. It was really good for us to have an ideological competitor the other side of the Iron Curtain. It kept us on our feet. It kept us on it. Absent that competition, we became hubristic and we neglected.

We allowed huge levels of inequality to develop in our societies, both vertically in terms of class and geographically. Whole regions of our countries, the U.S. Rusfeld, the north of England, the southeast of Poland got left behind. we neglected the needs for solidarity and equality on the one hand and for community and identity on the other. And it is, however, way, way precisely through that chaos, which makes you so uncomfortable, the chaos of freedom, the robust, often messy debates that we have, that we are now beginning to work out how we correct those mistakes. So what you are seeing is actually the self-correcting power of freedom, of free countries with not just procedural democracy, but also deliberative democracy with free speech. And what I would say in this, to take this forward, is that we in the West in liberal democracy have had our crisis. Roughly speaking, since the financial crisis of 2008, Western liberal democracies had one blow after another.

I think we're just beginning to turn the corner and come out of it. Your crisis is still in store for you. Because if China were indeed this absolute perfect model of Confucian good government, meritocratic, efficient, harmonious, always concerned only for the welfare of all its people, there wouldn't be any unhappy people there. But there are quite a lot of unhappy people in China at the moment. And the reason for that is that your system is actually a blend of traditional Chinese systems of governance with something extremely familiar to me because I've been studying it all my life, which is a Leninist system.

And my great concern is this. Your book, The China Wave, I have it here. Your book came out, I correct me if I'm wrong, in 2012. Between 1978 and 2012, I really admired the way in which China, was to use your own phrase, crossing the river by feeling for the stones. A pragmatic evolutionary policy which started with the dedicatee of your book, Deng Xiaoping. But the fact is, since 2012, since Xi Jinping came to power,

there's been a sharp reversion to a classic Leninist system with all power being concentrated again in the single party and all power within the party within the hands of a single leader, which is why I call it a dictatorship, a term that a Marxist should not object to. During his five years as China's president, Xi Jinping has overseen an era of increased assertiveness and authoritarianism. Speaking at the Communist Party Congress,

President Xi unveiled a vision for a new era where China takes center stage in the world. And we know about the history of Leninism because we have a hundred years' experience of Leninism, and Leninism is very good at many things, but it is not good at dealing with the Chinese. challenges about complex modern economy and society, which is what you have in China. And so I fear that we've had our crisis and yours is yet to come.

And I say that with no shardin Friday because I would much, much rather that China had continued on the course, the pragmatic evolutionary course, developing a system that was genuinely new in history rather than going back to a clapped-out-old Leninist model, which never works in the end. You're listening to the Monk Debates podcast. Be it resolved, China's ability to defeat COVID-19 proves its system of governance is a better model than liberal democracy. Speaking for the motion is Zhang Wei Wei, Director of the China Institute at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. Arguing against the motion is Timothy Garden Ash, professor of European Studies at Oxford University and a senior fellow

at the Hoover Institution. So Wei, way, come back on this point that China's crisis lies ahead, that with this Leninist phase that China is in, yes, a very effective response to a pandemic because the command and control systems are in place, but what does that mean going forward in terms of dealing with the complexity of Chinese society and the demands of the Chinese people? Now, I'll explain a bit this idea of the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese political system. I call China a civilizational state, which is one of the longest or the longest continued civilization. And as a result, its governance tradition is very different, very unique.

I would describe a Western political party system as partial interest parties. You have each party which represents a certain section of the population, and they compete with each other, 51% win, 49% lose. The Chinese had never had this kind of experience. In China's long history, because China was first unified in 2-2-1 BC, you know, we've always practiced, you may call a kind of one-party system. Because China as a civilizational state, it's amalgamation, hundreds of states into one over its long history. That's why I never compare China with Norway or China with South Korea.

is smaller than Shanghai, you know, South Korea is smaller than most Chinese provinces. So you have to understand each province, the mentality, the way of thinking, even linguistic structure except the written language, between Shanghai-nees, people in Shanghai, Pekingese, people in Beijing, and Cantonese, people in Guangdong. The degree of difference is greater than a typical British and typical French and typical German. But we live on the same roof of one civilization. There's enormous diversity.

So to govern this kind of countries, it's always governed by unified ruling entity. And based on what we call the culture system, selections through examinations that China created, introduced into England as civil service examination system. On Sunday, our record high of nearly 1.2 million applicants took the annual civil service exam in China. an additional 150,000 from last year.

The admission rate for 109 jobs is greater than 1,000 to 1. So I think China has really learned a lot from its own tradition and also from Western countries and practices. We have this combination of selection plus election. I think it's better and much better than simply relying on election. So let's bring Timothy in on this point. So, Timothy, the argument here in effect is that China's further along the curve of governance, that they've been at this for 2,000 plus years.

And what you and others are characterizing as something as a look back to Leninism is, in fact, we're stuck in the past. We're stuck in a governance system that, as Weiwei points out, was formulated in an agrarian society of small, male white landholders. So why is Wei Wei wrong that China isn't, in fact, further along the path of governance, courtesy of its history, courtesy of its unification. Let's hear that reply. I think it would be an interesting one for our listeners. Well, I think that the problem there, Radyard, is that we're getting awfully Higalian here

in the sense that we're talking about a direction of history, as if anyone knows the direction of history. Nobody knows the direction of history. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone in 50 years time or 100 years' time. So there was a certain mistake in liberal triumphalism, which was to believe that the future absolutely, surely inevitably belonged to liberal democracies, Western style with universal suffrage and multiple parties and so on. Of course, that was a mistake. But it's just as much a mistake to believe that it belongs to any other model just because of its longevity. And the fact that something is old, and has a long history is not of itself decisive of anything. It's what you've made of it more recently, right?

I mean, Greece has had 2,500 years experimenting with democracy, but it's still a pretty ropey experiment. The other point I did want to make, though, is about this notion of the civilizational state. If you believe that the politics are an expression of the civilization underneath, then the proposition that the Chinese system is superior to liberal democracy becomes almost meaningless because it may be that your system, the Chinese system is good for the Chinese and the American system is good for the Americans. I don't happen to believe that, but it comes out of the logic of your own argument about the civilizational state.

I actually believe that while culture and history are very important factors, not to to be underrated at all. English culture, French culture, Chinese culture, Indian culture. The liberal gamble is that in the end politics can change culture. And we have many examples of countries like Spain, for example, or Poland, which for much of their history had a conservative reactionary, closed authoritarian culture. But through the experience, of democracy have become liberal democracies, and one such is, I hesitate to mention it again, Taiwan, rich in Chinese civilization, but very definitely a democracy. So I want to hear you push back a bit on Timothy's view that your argument is really

cultural. It's specific to China, that this model is not exportable, that it relies on these deep 2,000-year-old cultural traditions to, in fact, work, and therefore, the world really doesn't have much to learn from China. Let's hear your reply to that. Now, my thesis is quite simple. It's not the intention of the Chinese government, nor me as a scholar, trying to export China model. This itself is very much not part of Chinese culture. Chinese culture is more or less like if you really try to lead other countries in one way or another, by setting your own good example.

We do not force you to adopt China model. But what has happened in the world today is since China is reasonably successful, after all, 40 years ago, China's per capita GDP was lower than most African countries. Now China's largest economy by purchasing power parity. So this success itself attracts many, many people. In Africa, they talk about looking east.

And in many other countries, they are also trying to draw inspiration from China model. But at the same time, China has one very important message to share with our Western friends. That is, we are a culture of learning. We want to learn everything good from other countries, other civilizations. As Confucius famous, it said, if you are with two other people, one of them can be your teacher. So we have this, from the top leadership, Xi Jinping Political Bureau, any workplace, we have this study sessions, regularly study session. You know, I said Xi Jinping embraces 2050, Donald Trump embraces 1950. This kind of outlook will mean a lot in the future.

We try to plan strategically and long vision. That really plays well in Chinese culture. because it's a civilizational state. You cannot just play the next 100 days that will not work. At least five years. So I think all these are the elements which really I think the West could really sit down and try to learn a bit about Chinese practice, which are good practices. If you like this podcast, check out our other episodes,

including debates on everything from the U.S. election to the accuracy of COVID-19 data, to whether billionaires should exist. All free to download or stream on our website, monkdebates.com. Okay, so before I come to closing statements, I just want to get Timothy you to comment on this idea of China as a model to the world. Wei Wei is saying that's not the explicit Chinese view or purpose, but Timothy, we have to acknowledge, you would have to acknowledge

that many countries, especially developing nations, are now turning to China and are stuptuble. studying, our learning, maybe they're imbuting some Confucius values here, and saying, look, there's a powerful combination here of elements of a market system connected to, you know, a system of governance that is, you know, stressing collective responsibilities and procedural state. And this has produced very impressive results from China, both within the pandemic and long before. So why isn't the China model going to become a, an effective international competitor to liberal democracy in the decades to come.

I absolutely believe that we now have for the first time since the end of the Cold War a serious ideological competitor in the Chinese model of what I would call developmental authoritarianism. And given that we in the mess have made such a mess of things, starting with the financial crisis, it's partly not so much that China looks so good, but the West looks so bad. But you're absolutely right, looked at from Latin America, looked at from Africa, looked at from parts of Asia. As a developmental model, China looks really quite attractive compared to a West that is in crisis in many ways. So that's undoubtedly the case. The question is, is that the last word to be spoken?

Is that the end of the story? No, the story is ongoing. And what I'm trying to argue to you is through the capacity for self-criticism, which is a liberal speciality, if not a liberal passion. The free world, the world of liberal democracies, is much better at reforming itself and is reforming itself. While I do believe the crisis of the Chinese system, not so much because of its Confucian components or traditional Chinese component,

but because of its now much more strong, strongly emphasized Leninist component under Xi Jinping, the crisis of the Chinese system is still before us. So I think if we speak again in 10 years' time, it'll be interesting to see where the two stand. Timothy, that was a lovely summation. Would you like that as your closing statement, or would you like the opportunity to also provide a short closing remarks? I think that would serve fairly well. I think it would very well, too. So we'll let Wei now have his closing statement. So Wei, please take Timothy's remarks as his final summation. And if you could roughly think about two minutes on the clock to just sum up your

key points in this debate and what you want to leave our audience with. My advice to our Western friends is Dunsiao Pins famous remark. It's called the Emancipation of the Mind. But my really humble counsel to our Western colleague is really put aside whatever your ideological straightjack, even for one day or one week, try to look at China as it is. It's the most exciting place to be, you know. It's the greatest laboratory in human history, the social, economic, political, legal experiments. Everything is different. You look at the mindset of the Chinese young people.

They are so modern, so outlooks. They know West, ten times better the West. Young people know about China. So if really you can put aside ideological, whatever, straitjackets, and look at China, objectively, at least do a simple thing to know how most Chinese feel about their country, how most Chinese feel about their political system. Chinese are among the most optimistic people in the world about their political system, about the economic performance of the future of their personal lives.

Thank you. Thank you. Well, Wei Wei, Timothy, just a terrific civil, substantive debate. We got into so many of the key issues that I wanted to touch on. And I know our listeners are just hugely appreciative of both of your hard-won insights, clearly the years of thought that you've given to this question of the future of liberal democracy, the future of the China model and the competition of the two in the decades ahead. So on behalf of the Monk Debates community, thank you both for coming on the program today.

Great pleasure. Thank you. Well, that wraps up today's debate. I want to thank our participants, Zhang Wei Wei and Timothy Garden Ash. Wow, they certainly gave me a lot to think about. That was a terrific, substantive, meaty monk debate. As you know, the Monk Debates podcast is a place for civil and substantive debate on the big issues of the day. To listen on more debates from everything from climate change, to religion, to geopolitics, to the future of human progress, visit our website, wwwwmunkdebates.com. You can also find detailed show notes on today's debate. Thank you for helping us bring back the art of public debate one conversation at a time. I'm your moderator, Rudyard Griffiths. The Monk Debates are produced by Antica Productions and supported by the Monk Foundation. Rudyard Griffiths and Christina Campbell are the producers.

The Monk Debates podcast is mixed by Steve Lewin. The president of Antica Productions is Stuart Cox. be sure to download and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like us, feel free to give us a five-star rating. Thanks again for listening.