The Russo-Chinese threat to international democracy
By 
Shan-ul-Hai •
July 14, 2008
One of the inherent problems with democracy is the fact that it’s too easy for a corrupt leader to seduce the population. As long as the country maintains the farce of a popular election, the world won’t bother them as much as they’ll bother a benevolent autocrat. Just look at Russia and China…
Recently, Russia and China used their UN veto power to nix the proposal to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe’s illegitimate leader, who rigged an election and intimidated his opponent in order to retain his power. Everybody in the world agrees that he shouldn’t be in power; he’s an old man who was a revolutionary twenty years ago, but has evolved into a power-hungry dictator with a nominal election to justify his rule. So why didn’t Russia and China agree to the sanctions?
Well, they know that if they allow sanctions on Zimbabwe, then they may well be next. Russia did elect a new leader, but everybody knows that Medvedev is just one of Putin’s cronies and was installed as a puppet President while Putin continues to call the shots; John McCain has called for them to be expelled from the G8 and Barack Obama suggests that, while his actions will be more diplomatic, they will be strenuous nonetheless. China, meanwhile, has never even tried to cover up their horrible human rights record and they only have veto power because we know that they have the power to destroy us if they wanted to.
I’m not suggesting that we expel Russia from the G8 (like McCain suggests) and take away China’s veto power immediately, since either of those actions would remove those countries’ biggest incentives to at least be moderately democratic. Still, we need to take the issue seriously… can’t we at least push them to institute leaders who care more about the benefit of humanity than they do about the benefit of their own ego?
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How long did it take you to think up this post? My two-year old could do better.
“Everybody in the world agrees that he shouldn’t be in power; he’s an old man who was a revolutionary twenty years ago, but has evolved into a power-hungry dictator with a nominal election to justify his rule. So why didn’t Russia and China agree to the sanctions?”
I agree that *almost* everybody in the world would agree that Mugabe is a horrible leader. However, many would disagree with the idea that the West has the right (or duty) to intervene.
The West (and the US in particular) has demonstrated time and time again that intervention rarely goes as planned and can often do more harm than good. Iraq is a shining example of planned intervention gone wildly astray. Other good examples would be the countless American interventions in South America, the Middle East, and elsewhere.
China and Russia may be in the spotlight, with their vetoes, but even many fellow African countries do not want the West meddling and messing things up, yet again, in Africa. Mugabe is a problem for the people of Zimbabwe, and of Africa. Let them deal with it while the West deals with more pressing matters, such as ending the bloodbath in Iraq and learning to let countries pave their own paths, even if those paths go against Western interests or offend precious Western sensibilities.
“How long did it take you to think up this post? My two-year old could do better.”
Thanks for the constructive criticism. That did a whole lot of good. I especially like the “do guys like you have a brain” title… obviously, I don’t. You can disregard the fact that I managed to build a blog which attracts many regular visitors and, well, even the fact that I can perform basic motor functions… all that aside, I think it’s still obvious that my post involved much more thought than a statement like “my two-year old could do better.”