Xu Sixpack?

Many politicians who have supported free trade with China have argued that China's exposure to new products and ideas through contact with the rest of the world will result in a more open society. Grassroots pressure from China's "newly aware" populace will force drastic change in a government that suppresses basic human rights like freedom of the press, the argument goes. A more enlightened leadership in China won't deal with rogue states like Sudan and Iran or oppress Tibetan culture.

These assumptions overlook one significant factor that figures to play a huge role in the call for change, or lack thereof, among China's citizens — the quieting effect that economic prosperity has on a society's natural impulse towards revolutionary change.

For example, the secret to the stability of America's economic and political systems has always been the large middle class that it has produced. As long as Joe Sixpack can afford to pay for a DVD, a car, a house, a family vacation once a year and iPods and Game Boys as Christmas presents for his kids, he will always be too complacent to cast a vote for drastic structural changes.

And why would he want to? You don't change something that's working for your benefit. Multiply Joe Sixpack by a hundred million people or so, and you have a voting block that significantly outweighs America's economic underclass, and the small segment of America's middle and upper class who are angry over corporate and political corruption and a lack of progress on issues like global warming and energy independence.

This state of affairs in the U.S. correlates neatly with what is currently happening in China. Even though China is run by an autocratic society, the current and future economic prosperity that the leadership is bringing to its citizens is likely to have a dampening effect on any grassroots effort to change the government drastically. In other words, the world should expect to deal with an autocratic government running China well into the foreseeable future, regardless of its economic openness to the rest of the world. Or, at the very least, the world should not expect the pressure to change to come from within China.

I say this after having watched a multi-night documentary that Ted Koppel produced on China for the Discovery Channel about a month or two ago. I was struck by an interview he did with a relatively young Chinese man, who seemed to be in his late 20s or early 30s. Koppel asked the man whether it bothered him that he lived in a society in which he was not free to express himself. The man's answer was something along the lines of "Not really. The powers that be are doing a good job running the country, so I don't mind not talking about certain things."

This is a rational response for that man. Even though he lives in a society where he cannot criticize his government or have more than one child, he was relatively content with his material comforts and attributed that to the way the country was being run by its current leadership. So why would he want to rock the boat?

In order for China to change, it's exactly these people who are going to be the ones who call for change. I would argue that it's going to be very difficult to convince them to "throw out the bums" when those bums and their policies are putting food on their tables, roofs over their heads, and Xboxes in their living rooms.

Bob Finkelstein is a freelance writer. To respond to his Slant, or submit one of your own, e-mail your 650-word opinion piece to Brian Howard (bhoward@citypaper.net).