Assault on civil society
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By Stephen Costello
A recent New York Times story was titled “Meeting with Taiwan Reflects Limits of China’s Checkbook.” The reporter, Austin Ramzynov, was making a point that may not be original, but is extremely timely. China’s decades-long model of economic engagement ― with East Asian neighbors, with South Americans and with Africans ― may have lost much of its appeal. Particularly in East Asia, the past two years have been a wake-up call for many observers. The March 2014 Sunflower movement in Taiwan, touched off by a trade agreement with China, and the September 2014 Umbrella movement in Hong Kong, in reaction to proposed changes to the election laws on the island, brought tens of thousands of people into the streets for weeks. They have had profound impacts on the public and elites in many East Asian countries. The two share a dynamic in which Chinese moves to consolidate relations provoke charges of bullying and fear of influence or control by the Chinese government.
The context for the dip in China’s soft power occurs in parallel with several trends. President Xi Jinping was faced with a daunting array of domestic crises, regardless of what his plans were, when he assumed power in March of 2013. They included environmental policies that required modernization and official corruption that corroded public support for the Communist Party. Another context was that of artists, writers and assorted free thinkers whose accomplishments and notoriety challenged Party rule, or seemed to. The expanding internet challenges state control but cannot be completely blocked. A crackdown on dissent and free expression, and lawyers, has resulted. Combined, these trends put an authoritarian system under powerful stresses. The government could either allow new freedoms and risk that the system will be forced to liberalize, or clamp down and miss out on central elements of modernization and soft power attractiveness.
Then there are the Japanese and Korean democracies. In Japan, associations of historians and journalists have raised alarms about government attempts to control the press and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet support for historical revisionists, rewriting textbooks, and even support for right-wing violence against non-government, independent, or liberal voices.
In South Korea, the U.N. Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) has recently expressed mounting concerns over civil liberties, with special attention to the government’s disbanding of a small opposition political party, the UPP. The Internet is under increasing government control, and political pressure is outwardly applied. Now a renewed push by President Park Geun-hye for the administration to take control of history textbooks ― allegedly in response to “pro-North” and “leftist” narratives in current books, has become a national embarrassment.
While the justification for the government’s fear of free expression in politics, history, journalism or among the public is somewhat expected under authoritarian systems, it is less expected in democracies. This is especially so for countries with robust opposition parties and voices, such as Korea and Japan. One can identify specific mistakes by progressive parties in both countries, but more is going on than normal political fighting.
The government insecurity about a free civil society and uncontrolled communications comes at the same time that conservative parties have gained power in democracies at record levels. Germany, Israel, the UK, Australia, Japan and South Korea are all guided by conservative parties. Is this a coincidence? Probably not. However, even the broad conservative forces in Japan and Korea are debating these trends, because their obvious and inevitable conflict with democratic values and law-based liberties is clear. Progressive forces are divided for now, but that will not last long.
There is work to be done by all supporters of democratic systems to roll back this trend. Political parties especially ought to be out in front in support of hard-won rights. But larger forces are also at work, and few institutions are prepared to digest their meaning for the activists, teachers, historians and political leaders of today and tomorrow. This is a good focus for renewed and interconnected civil society networks. The work will certainly be long and difficult, but it also could not be more important.
Later this month the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) will host a discussion here in Washington on the subject of “The Global Assault on Civil Society.” The NED notes “The deepening clampdown on civil society is a prominent feature of the broader resurgence of authoritarianism that is challenging democratic values and adversely affecting democracy in a growing number of ways.” Northeast Asia is a stunning example of that clampdown. The current battle over democratic norms, freedoms and laws has more direct impact on lives even than other urgent battles. And it is inseparable from China-U.S. competition, the corporate vs. public economic values debate within the TPP, or the growing political attention to global inequality and the wealth gap.
Historians, journalists and multiple NGOs are speaking up, making this crackdown anything but quiet. That is a good thing. Governments are being particularly quiet, which is a whole other subject. One thing is certain. The battle over democratic norms and civil society protections is well underway, and it will be at the center of social and political battles in the next elections.
Stephen Costello is a producer of AsiaEast, a Web and broadcast-based policy roundtable focused on security, development and politics in Northeast Asia. He writes from Washington, D.C. He can be contacted at cosetllos@asiaeast.org.