Genevieve Simms

For hundreds of years, trade between China and western states had been pretty much a one-way street. European demand for Chinese tea, silk and porcelain was high; Chinese demand for European goods was minimal. After all, China had invented a major portion of the West’s technology — notably the wheelbarrow, gunpowder, the compass, clocks and the rudder — and so was happy to accept payment in silver rather than in trade.

Having taken over India in the 1700s, however, Britain soon hit upon the idea of exporting Indian opium into China, it having the advantage of being (a) basically free to produce and (b) highly addictive. By the 1820s, China was importing more than 5,000 barrels per day. Addiction and corruption flourished, and eventually the Chinese emperor intervened and sought to suppress the trade.

Angered, Britain fought back and won what became known as the Opium War of 1839-42. As a result, Chinese isolation from and indifference to the West was shattered, and it was forced to accept a number of trade treaties favourable to European nations. Another series of treaties followed at the end of the 19th century, at which time the United States forced an “open door” policy on China by which all foreigners would gain equal access to the massive Chinese market.

By the end of the 20th century, China’s relationship with the West was once again under scrutiny. This time, however, the major question was whether or not China would become the dominant power of the 21st century. Since the death of Mao Zedong and the subsequent economic liberalism of Deng Xiaoping in the mid-1970s, China’s economy had grown at an average annual rate of 10 per cent and was now fourth behind only the U.S., Japan and Germany. At the same time, though still a poor country by western standards, China’s average per capita income had risen sixfold.

Yet there remained doubts. These mostly had to do with whether the Communist regime could sustain such growth in a global economy driven by free-market capitalism and free-trade liberalism. Mark Steyn of Britain’s Daily Telegraph thought clearly not. “Beijing’s leadership does not accept that the cause is lost,” he wrote two years ago. “Unlike most outside analysts, they do not assume that the world’s first economically viable form of Communism is merely an interim phase en route to a free — or even free-ish — society.”

This has, more or less, been the consensus within the West. China’s impressive growth over the past quarter-century had been achieved despite, not because, of its political leadership. What was needed for it to continue was a healthy dose of westernization.

At least, this appears to be the central argument of a recent book by Will Hutton, The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the 21st Century. Hutton argues that China will only succeed in the years ahead if it embraces the “economic and political pluralism of the West in general… and our Enlightenment institutions in particular.” By this, Hutton means the rule of law, embedded constitutions, independence of the judiciary, freedom of the press, representative and accountable government, and an untrammelled culture of scientific research. “These are not ‘western’ (ideals),” he concludes, “but independent components of any well-functioning economy and society.”

Hutton may well be right. After all, China’s disregard for basic human rights has been well documented, from the horrors of the Great Leap Forwards and Cultural Revolution (in which more than 30 million died) to the massacre at Tiananmen Square to China’s refusal to intervene against neighbouring Burma’s human rights abuses.

But he may also be wrong, or at least beside the point. After all, the alleged universal values and institutions he advocates evolved out of a specific historical moment and a specific historical culture: namely, western Europe and North America in the 1600s and 1700s. And even within that region, the Enlightenment’s ambition was noticeably conservative, with women, slaves and the working poor all remaining disenfranchised for another century or two. It took the French Revolution of 1789 to highlight these limitations; it took the Russian Revolution of 1917 to provide a model for overcoming them.

Thus when Communism came to China in 1949, it could (arguably) be claimed that the Asian nation was indeed adopting one strand of the West’s own heritage. That the West would repudiate Communism 40 years later does not mean that China necessarily made the wrong choice, or that the current regime is somehow out of step with the rest of the world.

On another level, in fact, it is apparent that China is at the core of recent global developments. China’s recent economic miracle has been fuelled by low-priced exports, its share of world manufacturing up to six from one per cent over the past 25 years. The U.S. imports 40 per cent of this. The result: importing cheap Chinese-made goods has helped keep western inflation and interests rates down, in America’s case by as much as one percentage point.

In turn, this has helped fuel America’s consumer boom over the past generation. The concurrent boom in housing has pushed prices higher, providing homeowners with greater equity against which to borrow and spend more, so creating increased demand and new jobs, jobs for workers who also now have more money to spend, and so on.

So here’s the scenario for the 21st century. Any slowdown in the Chinese economy or destabilization of its political regime is likely to have major consequences for the West. Much like the Chinese 150 years ago, we’ve become addicted to cheap imports. Breaking the habit is a risk we might not be wise to take.