When will China become a democracy? The answer is around the year 2015. Some might think such a prediction foolhardy but it is based on developments on several fronts, ones inadequately reported in the American media. There are, indeed, unmistakable signs of important positive changes in China. These changes are undoubtedly related to China's steady and impressive economic growth, which in turn fits the pattern of the way in which freedom has grown in Asia and elsewhere in the world.
Bad But Getting Better
According to the latest survey of political rights and civil liberties by Freedom House, China's freedom rating is, in effect, zero. At first glance it is easy to see why. The country remains a one-party state under the rule of the Communist Party; the Justice Ministry admits to having 2,700 "counter-revolutionaries" in prison (many of them actually political dissidents and labor and human rights activists); officials admit to over 2,000 summary executions in 1994; people are often detained for long periods without trial; and many people, especially peasants, are ill-treated by local authorities.
On the other hand, things have improved. China has come far since the disastrous Great Leap Forward of the 1950s, and the lunatic Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and early 1970s. Higher incomes have given people more personal space, agents of the state have less control over citizens' lives, and the typical Chinese is freer to move about the country. The coercive one-child policy is being flouted in the countryside, causing authorities to adopt economic incentives in an effort to gain compliance.
The progress that has been made, and the prospect for more of the same, can be considered under three headings: the growth of grassroots democracy; the struggle toward a rule of law; and the liberalizing of the mass media.
Grassroots Democracy
