Impact turns + answers – bfhmrs russia War Good
Download 0.83 Mb.
|
Harbor Teacher Prep-subingsubing-Ho-Neg-Lamdl T1-Round3, Impact Turns Aff Neg - Michigan7 2019 BFHMRS
2ac – at: ccp !CCP is insulated --- no impactKatagiri 17 (Noriyuki Katagiri is assistant professor of political science at Saint Louis University, visiting research fellow of Air Staff College, Japan Air Self-Defense Force, and non-resident fellow of the Modern War Institute at the United States Military Academy, West Point. 1/17/17 “What Democratization, Trade Expectations, and Military Power All Mean for the Future of Sino-American Relations.” Asian Security. Taylor and Francis Online) Short of full democratization, China’s political transition is treated here as a hypothesis because the CCP has done much to limit it and done so quite successfully. I do not assume China’s transition to democracy but examine it in terms of China’s domestic stability because its consequences on Sino-American relations are serious. Rather than speculate whether or not China will democratize in the future, in this article, I examine how China’s domestic stability interacts with economic and military factors to shape the course of Sino-American relations. Over two decades after the Tiananmen incident, the CCP remains in firm control of domestic policy and foreign affairs, allowing little separation of powers across the government and check and balance against the hierarchy. It has responded to unrest with censorship and repression by the Ministry of Public Security, People’s Armed Police, People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and the Ministry of State Security, as well as other law enforcement organizations, private contractors, and citizen volunteers. Aware that a full-fledged political liberalization would involve a replacement of its own, the CCP has suppressed dissent, limited citizens’ access to legal counsel and impartial trials, restricted the ability of citizens to obtain redress for grievances through official channels, and detained critics through legal and extralegal means. Even though China already had one of the most restricted media environments in the world, Xi Jinping has tightened the media and information controls, censorship of private communications, and social media. He has also proactively shaped the online conversation among citizens by hiring online commentators to write posts that depict the party in positive light. His actions have generated what Rebecca MacKinnon calls a “networked authoritarianism” in which “the single ruling party remains in control while a wide range of conversations about the country’s problems nonetheless occurs on websites and social-networking services.” David Shambaugh writes that, “[j]ust as in its experience with economic reform, the CCP is most likely to pursue political reform incrementally; experimenting with new methods here and there, expanding them gradually horizontally and vertically within the country.” All efforts at reform are directed toward the continued survival of one-party rule. The CCP has been careful and successful not to empower its citizens too much and too fast. Because balance of public demand and government concession is key to internal stability, this cautiousness is carried out in what Youwei calls “authoritarian adaptation – the use of policy reforms to substitute for fundamental institutional change.” The CCP selectively tolerates but regulates public protests and policy debates over corruption, income inequality, civil rights violations, and environmental degradation. James Reilly shows that, “Chinese leaders provide an outlet for the most mobilized, informed, and engaged segments of the population to express their opinions. At the same time, the state relies upon pervasive surveillance, coercion, and censorship to restrain activities from mobilizing to directly challenge CCP rule.” Similarly, China suppresses drastic nationalist sentiment against the United States. China has been cautious with foreign endeavors in part because its internal audiences are not predisposed toward using force and its system does allow the public to punish the leader for bad decisions. In fact, civilian-led regimes with powerful elite audiences like China’s are no more belligerent than democracies. Accordingly, China has been careful not to be too aggressive over territorial disputes in the South China Sea and East China Sea and avoid getting entangled in hot wars with Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan, each of which is aligned with US forces one way or another. So there are mechanisms in place that discourage the CCP from rushing to war as it proceeds with the partial opening of its society. Facing a paradox that the richer the country becomes, the more insecure they feel, the CCP tackles the growing voice from the population for social fairness and environmental safety. China’s transition to a more rule-based society may become likely thanks to its own battle against officials’ misconduct and opening up ways for popular participation. Doubtlessly, formal bodies of accountability remain weak and citizens generally lack resources to monitor, elect, and remove government officials. Nonetheless, corrupt officials are increasingly subject to informal rules and norms created by community groups and have been prosecuted by tightened sets of rules. The push for openness comes from a combination of several factors, including economic development, growing inequality among its citizens, civil society, generational change for the youth who demand more freedom, the rise of pro-democratic communist leaders like Wen Jiabao, and growing social openness. Even if a full-blown multi-party democracy may not emerge, economic growth and socioeconomic inequality is a key source of power for political mobilization. People are talking more about democracy than before and have better access to information technology. Xi Jinping has taken steps to reinforce recent efforts of former President Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao to address social inequality, welfare, education, unemployment, and corruption at the top level. Moving forward with district-level elections and judicial reform, he has led the CCP to allow voting for multicandidate party secretaries, recruit more public and corporate leaders into the party, make the Politburo’s proceedings more transparent, encourage party members to provide feedback, introduce meritocratic criteria for evaluation and promotion, and enforce retirement requirements. Download 0.83 Mb. Share with your friends:
|