Economic Growth and Liberalization in China
Will economic growth and liberalization lead to democratization in China? One Chinese official responded to a similar question in this way: “No one predicts five years. Some think ten to 15. Some say 30 to 35. And no one says 60.” China is an authoritarian country, but it has adopted liberal political reforms, which led to a Chinese economic rise in the 1980s, and is growing closer to becoming a democratic country. Even though the process of democratization is gradual and slow, this process will continued in the future, because of the following reasons:
• The process to becoming a democracy will continued because China has already experienced economic development because of liberal political reforms, (Huang, 34)
• Economic growth and liberalization have already led China toward a democratic economic structure, and
• The process of democratization has not been delayed. It is just gradual and slow, which is better than rapid democratization.
While China had economic growth when it had political liberalization in the 1980s and mid-1990s, it had economic stagnation when it returned to the authoritarian regime in the early 1990s. As we can see in Figure 1, “Chinese economy performed when the politics turned liberal;