Well on the issue of demographics, you are right.
Thank you Finn McCool for acknowledging that fact. How we agree is as important as how we differ.
But remember this: the "authoritarian" (you say authoritarian, but really just the third world/the worlds poorer nations) are still very poor, have terrible education systems, etc. etc. And really the only ones with favorable foreign reserves are Iran, China and Russia. These countries have problems all their own. I mean look at China. They should consider themselves lucky if buildings don't melt everytime it rains in 2012.
I'm glad quotes like this can still make me laugh in such a dark times as these. It is my hope that China's ecological nightmare, will keep its organs of state security, the Politburo, and its military at least partially engaged, in pursuit that cannot damage the freedom of its neighbors. It would be reassuring at the very least to know that nations like Taiwan and South Korea might remain safe for democracy, during this perilous time, if for no other reason than the Chinese Politburo has environmental concerns within its territory the sort most of the Chinese government's attention.
As for the words and definitions I choose to use when describing China, I've given it lots of thought and I consider them to be the most accurate given the circumstances. I will provide dictionary links for the sake of intellectual clarity.
When I referred to the current political structure of China as authoritarian, one must be particularly mindful of the limitations under which the Chinese government practices its continuing authoritarianism. I have no doubt that the Chinese government would love to be more authoritarian than it is, and under a wider range of circumstances. In the mind of most of the more hardline Chinese leaders, this
strictly economic liberalization is nothing more then a way to help preserve an authoritarian set of social and political policies.
While China limits its authoritarianism in the social sphere, it does so only because minutely policing the actions of every dissident great and small, the way it happened in Fascist Italy or Germany would be cost prohibitive, under the giant population numbers inside Chinese territory. This selective enforcement should not be construed as a lack of desire on the part of the Chinese leadership to maintain an authoritarian order, for as long as possible. The massive population numbers in China however tend to limit the expression of these authoritarian impulses and make China look more liberalized than it actually is. I would caution all my readers, not to confuse the lack of ability of Chinese politicians to become totalitarian with an actual desire to thoroughly liberalized their society. Under these conditions calling the Chinese political structure [bold]authoritarian[/bold] is perfectly correct despite their inability to fully realize their desires. The Chinese leadership is fine with becoming rich so long as nobody in their country holds the opinion which may feel he is against their wishes.
Contrast China's political development with say another former Third World country like Thailand, or India in the early 90s. In the cases of India and Thailand, economic and political liberties have shown a tendency to grow together, which is a great indication, that the politicians in these countries were genuine in their intentions.
Third world politics may lack all of the wondrous checks and balances of Western democracies. However the desire of the Chinese elites, to liberalize only to the minimum extent that reality forces upon them, is painfully evident next to the achievements of any third world government that has been more wholehearted in its desire to change.
A point of clarity is worth considering however in the word
authoritarian. The recent attempts by the Bush administration to apply authoritarian principles to the president's ability to identify enemies/fight terrorism, has muddied the waters somewhat as to what authoritarian means. However a failed wartime attempt to slip away from constitutional boundaries on the part of the US president's office (over the eventual objections of the citizenry, legislature, Supreme Court and bureaucracy) is a far cry less potent than the authoritarianism that pervades nearly all the branches of the Chinese government. Of course as a point of additional differentiation, the Chinese people have almost absolutely no say in this at all, which is another major difference. Nonetheless we can take recent events the United States as a cautionary tale on just how fast open societies can become closed, if the necessary objections are not clearly put forward before an authoritarian (cleverly camouflaged as a public safety initiative)order can fully establish itself.
Also I don't think that it is appropriate to think of the world's poor undemocratic nations as a unified bloc, opposed to a unified bloc of rich democratic nations.
To the extent that the world's poor undemocratic nations are oil exporters they do often operate as a political blocs under the auspices of OPEC. We all remember well, during the 70s when OPEC managed to bring the world markets to a state of panic simply via the credible threat of an embargo. Fortunately for the baby boom generation of the 70s the embargo never fully materialized, mainly due to the fact that Saudi Arabia and Libya did not wholeheartedly comply with the OPEC policies, that its member nations agreed to.
This time around, the oil shortages are real instead of a statistical misrepresentation by groups such as the Club of Rome. This time the number of nations with significant oil exporting capability is much smaller than it used to be, at a time when India and China now have economies that now will actually use the lion's share of future world reserves.
While I have come to disagree with current (Bush administration) US foreign policy, the fact remains that such policies are vulnerable to generalized Third World disorder. If North Korea for example takes advantage of the United States over the extended military situation in Iraq, to cause trouble in its neighborhood, the fact that there is, no direct collusion between the Iraqi insurgents and the North Koreans does not mean that the effect isn't the same as if the collusion had taken place. One of the reasons I push for a drastic reduction of commitments overseas is in part to fight America's debt on a good footing, and in part an acknowledgment that America no longer has the ability to fight multiple conflicts at the same time with the necessary maximum efficiency.
