Can China Be the Next Egypt The globalisation of revolution Revolutions are caused by human agency; not telecommunications technologies, scholar argues.

Around the world, people are wondering what kind of example Egypt will provide in their future struggles for democracy and equality, says Tarak Barkawi [GALLO/GETTY] To listen to the hype about social networking websites and the Egyptian revolution, one would think it was Silicon Valley and not the Egyptian people who overthrew Mubarak. Via its technologies, the West imagines itself to have been the real agent in the uprising. Since the internet developed out of a US Defense Department research project, it could be said the Pentagon did it, along with Egyptian youth imitating wired hipsters from London and Los Angeles. Most narratives of globalisation are fantastically Eurocentric, stories of Western white men burdened with responsibility for interconnecting the world, by colonising it, providing it with economic theories and finance, and inventing communications technologies. Of course globalisation is about flows of people as well, about diasporas and cultural fusion. But neither version is particularly useful for organising resistance to the local dictatorship. In any case, the internet was turned off at decisive moments in the Egyptian uprising, and it was ordinary Egyptians, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, who toppled the regime, not the hybrid youth of the global professional classes. Nothing new about globalisation Are there other tales of globalisation, perhaps those told by rebels and guerrillas? Globalisation is also coming to awareness of the situations of other peoples, such as those similarly oppressed by local and faraway powers. Of particular interest are those moments when these peoples rise up, when they devise forms of revolt and struggle. Defeats provide lessons, and victories give hope. These revolutions need not be on satellite TV to effect their instruction. Revolutionaries in France and Haiti in the 1790s received news of one another''''s activities by the regular packet ship that plied between Jamaica and London. Sailors, slaves, and workers circulating in the Atlantic between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries shared and improved upon their repertoires of revolt and resistance, bringing the good news to ports from Rio to Boston, Bristol to Havana. When Indians rose in revolt in 1857, Frederick Engels analysed their mistakes - like the Libyan rebels today, they were too eager to stand and fight against a better organised opponent. Engels publicised the uprising in a series of newspaper articles that ultimately inspired Mao Tse-tung''s theories of guerrilla warfare, which went on to circulate as well-thumbed texts in the pockets of Vietnamese, Cuban, Algerian and other revolutionaries (and of those who sought to defeat them). Before Mao, Chinese nationalists and intellectuals at the turn of the twentieth century staged operas about the dismemberment of Poland and looked to the Boers, the Filipinos and others fighting imperialist oppressors, all in order to think through their own situation. This is the globalisation of revolution, and these are the histories within which the Tunisian example belongs, the example that so inspired the Egyptian people. News of it might as well have arrived in Egypt by caravan as by fiber optic cable, it would still have been electric, the very idea that the solitary stand of a fruit seller could bring down the big men. The agency was human, the act political. But these are also histories of despair, self-immolation and tragedy. Few peoples have resisted as have the Vietnamese, but at what cost, and for the reward of delayed re-entry into the capitalist world system. It is a blessing that the voice of the Algerian revolution, Frantz Fanon, who hailed from Martinique, is not alive to see the state of Algeria today. Soon we may feel the same about Nelson Mandela, the conscience of South Africa’s struggle against apartheid, as his country sinks into the hands of a venal elite. China prospers, but has abandoned its revolution, its people paying a greater price for Mao''s strategies in peace than they ever did in war. Post-revolution struggle It is no joke that revolutionaries face their greatest challenges after the revolution, and usually fail to meet them with sufficient humanity. Having broken from the international order in their struggles for freedom, revolutionary countries have proved unable to negotiate a re-entry into that order on terms that allow them to flourish, while remaining true to their principles. The question now is what kind of example will Egypt provide, to its Arab sisters and brothers, and to present and future struggles for justice, liberty and democracy the world over. The democratic forces of Egypt must look to other countries to think through their complex struggles, against old regime elements at home, for a political and economic order that promises opportunity and justice, and for a foreign policy that balances realism with values. In doing so, Egyptians would do well to cease looking to the tired countries of Europe or to the United States for recognition and inspiration, and instead turn their attention to the other powers of the global South who face the same dilemmas, powers like Brazil, India, Turkey and Indonesia. Having dealt a mortal blow to the American-centreed order in the Middle East, Egypt must still find its way in the one world we all share, and regain its place as a great non-Western power. Tarak Barkawi is a senior lecturer in War Studies at the Centre of International Studies in the University of Cambridge. He also authored the book Globalization and War (Rowman and Littlefield). He has held fellowships at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Harvard University; the Department of War Studies, King’s College London; the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University; and the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, Ohio State University.

Before the ink was dry on Hosni Mubarak's resignation and Cairo's streets began to clear, every news agency worth their Google ads began to report on the impact of Egypt's protests on China. Some pundits even suggested that China might be next. The problem with such reporting is that there wasn't much to report; events in the Middle East have not prompted the average Chinese to take to the streets or to do much of anything. In fact,"foreign journalists and curious shoppers" made up the majority of the crowd at the location of a theoretical Beijing protest that did not materialize. Ever resourceful, journalists covering China focused on how the Chinese state sought to control news of the protests in the Middle East. The reasoning is a little too clever, if you cannot find the story you want in China, blame it on Chinese censorship and make the censorship the story.

The new restrictions on foreign journalists and the detention of dissidents following events in the Middle East were noteworthy, not because they stymied similar protests in China, but because they seem to have been largely unnecessary. Despite the Chinese government's paranoia, there was more than enough information to spark a fire had the kindling been there. Image searches inside and outside China produced very similar images of the protests (see below).   The top search result for the Chinese characters for "reason for Egyptian disturbance" (which was one of the top suggested searches if you typed in "Egypt" in Chinese) was a blog plausibly blaming the protests on slow long-term development, high inflation, high unemployment, stagnant living standards and corruption. The comments on the blog were even more inflammatory. Loosely translated they included:

"Every country is the same, people's ability to endure it differs."

"That the [Chinese Communist] party commands the guns is very important."

"Egypt and China are the same, it's just that Chinese are more moderate."

"In Egypt crude law enforcement brought down the president. In China, such things are so common that no one even pays attention"

"One day China will likewise perish from its inability to control corruption."

The fact that it took at least five days for the government to take down this page when it was the top search result shows that censorship in China is pervasive but far from a complete black-out.

It is difficult to understand why anyone would have expected the ripples of unrest from the Middle East to reach China. Aside from the lack of real democracy and corruption that are unexceptional at their levels of development, China has little in common with Egypt. The same autocrat governed Egypt for three decades while China has been governed by a party that has mastered the art of non-democratic succession. Egyptian troops proved unwilling to fire on their own people. China's security forces have conspicuously, repeatedly, and recently demonstrated their willingness to use violence against protesters. Egypt was an ally of the US. China is increasingly seen as America's most important rival.

The economic contrast between Egypt and China is the starkest and undoubtedly the most important. Over the last three decades, China has experienced unprecedented economic growth and a correspondent, if not evenly distributed, rise in living standards, whereas Egypt's economy and standard of living have been comparatively stagnant. When Hosni Mubarack took control of Egypt in 1981 its real GDP per capita was approximately $719. In 1979 when China's reforms began, China's per capita GDP was only $212. In 2010, Egypt's real per capita GDP had only increased to $1,639, whereas China's was $2,802. Despite this, China's inflation remained relatively under control while Egypt's has been hitting double digits. These successes translate into how the Chinese feel about their status and their country. According to a recent Pew poll: "[n]early nine-in-ten Chinese are happy with the direction of their country (87%), feel good about the current state of their economy (91%) and are optimistic about China's economic future (87%)." Incidentally, the last time China suffered from a combination of high inflation and low growth the result was the Tiananmen incident.

China is a continent of a country and if unrest in Tibet or Xinjiang did not spark countrywide protests, it seems unlikely that the events in the Middle East could have much of an effect. One day millions of Chinese may take to the streets, more than likely in the context of a slowing economy and/or rising inflation, but don't expect the catalyst to be an external one.

The recent eruption of protests and violence in Egypt and the resignation of its president, Hosni Mubarak, lead some pundits to predict that the same movement will happen in China. However, China's circumstances are entirely different and a similar outcome is unlikely.

Along with India and Greece, Egypt and China are two of the oldest civilizations in the world. However, both the Arab Republic of Egypt and the People's Republic of China only established their current governments about 60 years ago. How did these two governments conduct their affairs? Why are the events that caused the collapse of the Mubarak regime not likely to happen in China?

The main issues that surrounded the downfall of the Mubarak regime appear to be the leadership and the economy.

In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak served as the only President of Egypt for over 30 years; yet in China, since Deng Xiaoping's launch of the Open and Reform Policy in 1978, China has made orderly transitions through three generations of leaders. Starting with Deng Xiaoping leading the second generation from 1976 to 1992; then Jiang Zemin leading the third generation from 1992 to 2003; and from 2003 the fourth generation with Hu Jintao as the core figure (General Secretary), along with prominent leaders including Wu Bangguo, Wen Jiabao, Jia Qinglin, Zeng Qinghong and Li Changchun. By 2012, the fifth generation of leaders will emerge, and the sixth generation of leaders is already being prepared.

In Egypt, the last three presidents -- Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak -- all came from military backgrounds. By contrast, Chinese leaders are mostly from civilian backgrounds, and many of them are in fact engineers. While many historical great leaders have come from military backgrounds, civilian leaders tend to seek non-military solutions, and they also have a broader vision for science, business, and society as a whole.

One of the rumors was that President Mubarak was plotting to let his son inherit his presidency, which upset a lot of people in Egypt, including the military council, and resulted in a forced resignation. When we look at the history of the People's Republic of China, no leader has ever been succeeded by their offspring. The orderly transition of leadership, a well-planned succession, and a merit based leadership selection process has resulted in maintaining China's stability and progress.

On the economy, both Egypt and China face a daunting task to deal with a vast number of people that need education and employment.

In the last 30 years, the Egyptian government has reformed the highly centralized economy it inherited from President Nasser. The pace of structural reforms, including fiscal and monetary policies, privatization and new business legislations, helped Egypt to move towards a more market-oriented economy and prompted increased foreign investment. The reforms and policies have strengthened macroeconomic annual growth results which averaged 5% annually, but the government largely failed to curb the growing problem of unemployment and underemployment among youth under the age of 30 years.

In this period China has followed its own socialist market economy and become the world's fastest-growing developing country, with average growth rates of 10% for the past 30 years. China has lifted 300 million people, about four times the size of Egypt's entire population, out of poverty. Certainly, China still has a lot of work to do, but its amazing accomplishment is clear.

China's success is largely due to its long-term planning strategy -- the Five Year Plans. Moreover, China is committed to stay on the course of its Five Year Plans and not by piecemeal legislation.

One of the example is China's overall economic construction objectives were clearly stated in the Three Step Strategy set out in 1978:

Step One -- double the 1980 GNP and to ensure that the people have enough food and clothing. This was attained by the end of the 1980s; Step Two -- quadruple the 1980 GNP by the end of the 20th century. This was achieved in 1995 ahead of schedule; Step Three -- increase per-capita GNP to the level of medium-developed countries by 2050, at which point the Chinese people will be fairly well-off and modernization will be basically realized.

The 12th Five Year Plan that was adopted in March 2011. Those who are interested in having a deeper understanding of China's future direction should study the plan and watch the events unfold. China will stick to its plan.

In most democracies, the citizen's trust and satisfaction with their own government is critical to the success of the nation, and China is no exception. Let us take a look at how most Chinese people view their government. According to 2010 Pew Survey:

China is clearly the most self-satisfied country. Nearly nine-in-ten Chinese are happy with the direction of their country (87%), feel good about the current state of their economy (91%) and are optimistic about China's economic future (87%). Moreover, 64% of Chinese have a very favorable view of their own country, a self regard that exceeds that among Americans (48%), Russians (43%), Germans (12%) and Brazilians (31%).

Citizen confidence leads to productivity, investments and stability. When the citizens are satisfied, the government can conduct its functions; business can produce goods and services, and people can work and provide for their family.

While there might be some similarities between Egypt and China in their long civilization, and the moving from a centralized economy to a market economy in the last 30 years, the difference is that China has maintained an orderly transition of leadership, and an economic planning process that is producing results. Most importantly, China's people are satisfied with their own government.