My Take | Beijing enjoys greater legitimacy than any Western state
- You are free to hate and despise China all you want, but if you think it will collapse by its own weight because its government lacks legitimacy or popular support, you will always be surprised and never understand your enemy
Most Americans think with its democracy, the United States has the best form of government. China, with its one-party dictatorial state, communist or otherwise, has the worst form. This is China’s Achilles' heel and will spell the downfall of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
In reality, from the Chinese people’s perspective and theirs alone, their government today enjoys greater legitimacy and popularity than any American or Western government with respect to their own citizens.
Consider the latest “Understanding CCP Resilience: Surveying Chinese Public Opinion Through Time” produced by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Based on eight surveys conducted between 2003 and 2016, and face-to-face interviews with more than 31,000 Chinese urban and rural residents, the satisfaction of the Chinese people with the central government was as high as 93.1 per cent in 2016, and that of the other three-level governments – provinces, cities and counties – was more than 70 per cent. By 2016, the Chinese government as a whole was more popular than at any time in the previous 20 years.
But by an almost universal (mis)understanding, the US government represents the people and their interests while the Chinese government doesn’t. It’s this unshakeable presupposition that leads many outsiders to distinguish between the communist state and the Chinese people. It turns on the all-important question of political legitimacy and explains why top US officials nowadays don’t refer to the Chinese government but the Chinese Communist Party.
It has become a common rhetorical strategy for US President Donald Trump, Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and any number of Pentagon generals and national security chiefs to draw a line between China’s leaders and its people.