test China vs. Liberal Democracy Debate - Munk Debates

China vs. Liberal Democracy Debate

June 23, 2020
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China vs. Liberal Democracy Debate

Be it resolved, China’s ability to defeat Covid-19 proves its system of governance is a better model than liberal democracy.

City-wide lockdowns and restrictions on the movement of over 400 million people. Mass quarantine centres and surveillance measures using facial recognition technology and drones. And, COVID-19 testing on a scale not achieved by any other nation globally. By combining the strengths of central planning and social order with the dynamism of the market to fight the pandemic, Beijing believes that its model of government has proven itself, once and for all, to be a compelling alternative to traditional liberal democracy. China’s critics respond that China’s success comes at too high a price. They claim that censorship, arbitrary detention, corruption, and denial of core rights and freedoms are weakening China from the inside out and masking its slide into full scale authoritarian government. Rather than being a guide to the future, they argue that exporting the “China model” will give new impetus to autocrats and dictators at a huge cost to human freedom.

“China’s model for fighting COVID-19 is based on the overall idea that people’s lives matter most. The Western model is essentially about business and commercial interests.”

– Zhang Weiwei 

“Some of the countries which have handled coronavirus best of all are democracies: South Korea, New Zealand, and most interestingly, Taiwan, a Chinese democracy. The fact that it came from China and spread from China is a failure of China’s governance system.”

– Timothy Garten Ash

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