For decades, many in the West — including myself — passionately believed that China would eventually embrace political reforms resembling Western democracies. I argued with students, worked on democracy projects, and witnessed China’s economic explosion in the 2000s, thinking a growing middle class would inevitably demand political change. Yet today, I am a “reformed hypocrite,” recognizing how misguided these assumptions were.
Several major global events reshaped Chinese skepticism toward Western advice. First, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was a disaster: Western-driven reforms led Russia into economic chaos and social decline, making Chinese leaders wary of similar Western prescriptions. Second, after the 9/11 attacks, America quickly shifted from criticizing China’s human rights record to embracing it as a strategic ally, exposing Western inconsistency. Third, the 2008 financial crisis shattered the West’s image as a beacon of responsible capitalism. Fourth, the political instability across the U.S. and Europe over the last decade further eroded any moral high ground the West once had.
China saw through this. Its leaders realized that Western political and economic models were not as superior or stable as portrayed. Instead of collapsing, China succeeded spectacularly — but on its own terms, blending authoritarian governance with hyper-capitalist economics. Ironically, China’s form of “turbo-capitalism,” devoid of strong labor rights or political freedoms, outcompeted the West at its own game.
Historically, Britain’s 19th-century approach to China also reveals a pattern: the West has never truly wanted a strong, independent China. British policy then — and Western policy now — is driven less by ideals and more by self-interest: wanting China to be strong enough not to collapse but weak enough not to challenge Western dominance.
Today’s strategic discomfort with China stems not from its political system alone but from its success. China has built a powerful, innovative economy without adopting Western democracy — something once thought impossible. This success exposes deep insecurities in Western elites who had bet on China’s failure or transformation into a “Western-like” state.
This dilemma taps into a 300-year-old philosophical conflict. Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire praised China’s meritocratic governance, Montesquieu condemned it as despotic, and Leibniz adopted a more neutral stance. Western views of China have always oscillated between admiration and fear. Today, this tension persists: on the surface, there’s concern for human rights, but deeper down, there is unease that China’s model is thriving without Western values.
In the end, China’s success challenges the West’s self-image. It forces an uncomfortable reckoning: maybe liberal democracy and free-market capitalism are not the only paths to prosperity. Perhaps what unsettles us most is not that China is different — but that it is succeeding by being different. ….see short video below
