Democracy in China: A Reality or a Dream?
...the lives of their children, and to improve their homeland. Does China exhibit these problems? For most of the 1900s China has been regarded as the “vanguard of reform among communist countries”(Dickson). Faced with crisis after crisis China has changed and modified its ideological goals to insure that the controlling party remained in power. As the world has become much more “global” China’s political parties have had to adapt to the influx of western culture. With this western cultural influence the people of China for the first time have seen democracy and have learned of its strengths and weaknesses. On the outside looking in, the people of the world have learned of the human right violations taking place in China and the oppression of its people. The world has begun to encourage and force political and social changes within the communist doctrines. China, like it has done for the past 50 plus years, is having to modify communism to ensure its existence. Each modification pushes it more and more towards the views of democracy. Since the world watch the shocking student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in the winter of 1996 and into 1997 both economic and political policies have shifted to accommodate the popular pressures for those changes. Furthermore as the economies of the world turn into one, China has been forced to learn and adapt to capitalism. It existence to compete and remain competitive rest on its ability to learn a basic fundamental offspring of democracy: capitalism. By most accounts China has welcomed and mastered the fundamental ideas of capitalism. So does the question remains does China have the same problems that former Communist countries had before their fall? Yes, China has all the problems previously mentioned above. China has done a great job, unlike the Soviet Union, in adapting and handling these problems, giving up more and more control and power as it does. Today, China is faced with a growing population and a lack of jobs for the world most populist country. It citizens are ruled with a strict hand as births and movements are regulated and restricted. In China it is necessary to receive permission from the government in order to move from city to city or town to town. Citizens’ lives are still highly controlled as the government decides their lives from were they live to if they get to go to college. What the United States considers as poverty is the way of life for millions of China’s citizens. The economy in large cities has recently exhibited forms of capitalism, as many Chinese businessmen have learned, but it is still filtering its way down to the more common markets in China. Human rights, although improving, are still a far cry from what the world expects. Recent tensions with surrounding countries and the US puts even more spot light on a country that most of the Western World still views, even after the end of the Cold War as the enemy. China’s government is under pressure once again because of the previously mentioned problems and once again the world will witness China’s attempt to adapt in order to not lose control. Will China’s Problems force Democracy? China is primed for an evolution. China’s problems are forcing it to slowly moving in that direction. It has no other choice but to adapt to survive in a world that, for the most part, is without any large communist countries. China, run by the China Communist Party (CPP), will have to evolve into more of a democratic state if it plans on keeping and encouraging political and economic stability. So far, as previously mentioned the CPP has...