New Politics in China: Prime Minister Wen Jiabao on Facebook

Following the massive earthquake in China, there was much discussion of the new media and communications technology that Chinese were using to spread news and opinions about the earthquake and the response to it. It seems that this earthquake and the use of this new media and new political tools has lead to the emergence of a new politics in China. From Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed in the New York Times last week:

In the aftermath of the great Sichuan earthquake, we've seen a hopeful glimpse of China’s future: a more open and self-confident nation, and maybe — just maybe — the birth of grass-roots politics here.

In traveling around China in the days after the quake, I was struck by how the public and the news media initially seized the initiative from the government. Ordinary Chinese are traveling to the quake zone to help move rubble, and tycoons, peasants and even children are reaching into their pockets to donate to the victims.

"I gave 500 yuan," or about $72, a man told me in the western city of Urumqi. "Eighty percent of the people in my work unit made donations. Everybody wants to help."

Private Chinese donations have already raised more than $500 million. That kind of bottom-up public spirit is a mark of citizens, not subjects.

This political cycle in America, the Obama campaign has revolutionized fundraising through the internet by enlisting supporters as partners in the campaign, not just voters. Just as American politics has changed, so too are Chinese taking politics into their own hands through individual giving. As Kristof argues, China is going through a fundamental change, as its people think of themselves as "citizens, not subjects." Kristof continues:

China may claim to be Marxist-Leninist, but it’s really market-Leninist. The rise of wealth, a middle class, education and international contacts are slowly undermining one-party rule and nurturing a new kind of politics.

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao is hard-working and blessed with nearly a photographic memory, but he also may be the second-most boring person alive (after his boss, President Hu Jintao). Both Mr. Hu and Mr. Wen rose through the system as classic Communist apparatchiks — Brezhnevs with Chinese faces. Yet Mr. Wen has seen the political landscape changing and has struggled recently to reinvent himself. When the earthquake hit, Mr. Wen flew immediately to the disaster area and appeared constantly on television, overseeing rescue operations.

Heroic tidbits seeped out. Mr. Wen fell and cut himself but refused medical attention. He bellowed directions to generals over the telephone and then slammed the handset down. He shouted to children buried in a pile of rubble: "This is Grandpa Wen Jiabao. Children, you’ve got to hold on!"

Mr. Wen’s conduct is striking because it’s what we expect of politicians, not dictators. His aim was to come across as a "good emperor," not to win an election. But presumably he behaved in this way partly because he felt the hot breath of public opinion on his neck.

Yesterday, the world (and Mike, who tipped me off to this) was shocked to find Prime Minister Wen on Facebook. That’s right, facebook.com, the social networking site started by Harvard students and spread through America’s universities, is now impacting Chinese politics. As of this posting, Wen had just surpassed 16,000 supporters.

China's transition from a compltely closed society in the three decades ago to one in which individuals are coming together to develop civil society - in large part with the help of these new tools - is indicative of broader change happening in that country. Kristof predicts that within two decades, the Chinese Communist party will transition to a "a Social Democratic Party that dominates the country but that grudgingly allows opposition victories and a free press." Indeed, there is already evidence of this in the aftermath of the earthquake, as the Chinese government realizes a free but professional press is of great use to them in that it provides important services that free-wheeling and unaccountable media cannot.

In this short period of time since the US chose to normalize trade relations with China, there has been much improvement in economic freedom. China's economy is moving toward a free market model and many sectors are extremely entrepreneurial and open. There can be no doubt that the liberalization of relations with the west and the opening of China and its markets to American goods, services, and ideas has worked. Time will tell if a market of ideas, that ultimately leads to a more democratic and liberal China, takes hold, even if that process does begin on Facebook.