Barack Obama walking past China's President Xi Jinping at APEC’s opening session in Lima, Peru, Nov. 20, 2016. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Press Association. All rights reserved.The Chinese regime has had a good 2016 because it was a bad year for democracy. Official Chinese media and various commentators have made fun of the Brexit referendum in Britain and the Trump victory in the United States as being what you get if you are careless enough to let the people decide. The Brexit referendum in Britain and the Trump victory in the United States… what you get if you are careless enough to let the people decide.
The Chinese system is being held up as a model of stability. The leader, Xi Jinping, has exploited uncertainty and vacuum in 'the West' first at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Peru in November 2016 and then at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, to brazenly offer China up to the world as the guarantor of economic openness and free trade.
The awkward thing for the democracy side is that the Chinese dictators have been given a godsend of democratic weakness, so much so that western democracy is widely seen to be in “crisis.” Both the Brexit vote and Trump’s victory were perverse. In Britain, there is a majority in the population and in Parliament in favour of continued membership in the European Union, but because of low voter participation among the young, that majority did not prevail in the referendum. In America, the losing candidate won the majority of the popular vote, but not in enough states to carry the election as constitutionally required.
