Does this argument also apply to, say, Russia, or Iran? What about historical examples of other autocratic states with economic success, like Chile under Pinochet? Or even Saddam's Iraq, which was a modestly economically successful state?
Many of the comments you make here also apply to those states. Ceasing the ideological counteroffensive against those states would probably make engagement easier. It might make it easier to predict what those states will do next. It might make it easier to co-operate in some regards with those states.
If the argument doesn't apply to Russia, Iran, or Pinochet's Chile, why not?
Thanks for this thoughtful comment. You're absolutely right to ask whether the framework I’ve outlined applies to other states — Russia, Iran, Pinochet’s Chile, or even Saddam’s Iraq. It’s a useful test of the argument.
At a broad level, the "legitimacy barrier" describes a situation where deep-seated ideological precommitments prevent one state — here, the United States — from recognizing another as a legitimate actor in the international system, regardless of that state's actual behavior. This manifests in a fundamental unwillingness to engage pragmatically, a default tendency to assume hostile intent, and a predisposition to seek not just policy change but regime change.
To determine whether this framework applies to the cases you mention, we need to ask: Has the U.S. refused to engage pragmatically with these states, irrespective of their actual conduct, because it sees them as inherently illegitimate? Or has the opprobrium stemmed from specific actions — invasions of other sovereign states, mass disappearances and other forms of brutal internal repression, sponsorship of terrorism, and so forth?
Russia: There is certainly a moralizing discourse around Russia, particularly in the post-2014 period, arguably further back to Putin's war in Georgia. Russia has been sanctioned and shunned at times, but never in a way that completely foreclosed engagement. The deep ideological hostility toward Russia existed during the Soviet period, but it was then even layered over a history of realpolitik engagement.
Iran: Here, the "legitimacy barrier" applies much more fully. The U.S. has refused to recognize the Islamic Republic as a legitimate actor since 1979, regardless of its actual policies. Even when Iran was abiding by the terms of the JCPOA, the deal was torpedoed because of the assumption that Iran’s government, by its nature, could never be trusted. That said, "performance," here, would also be hard to cite in Iran's defense — certainly not to the extent it can, as I argue, be cited in China's case.
Pinochet’s Chile: I view this more as an instructive counterexample. Pinochet’s regime was an autocracy, yet it was never viewed as inherently illegitimate by the U.S. government —precisely because it aligned ideologically with U.S. interests during the Cold War. This underscores that the legitimacy barrier is not about democracy versus autocracy, but can be overridden by other goals that shape American foreign policy.
Saddam’s Iraq: U.S. policy toward Iraq shifted dramatically over time. In the 1980s, the U.S. supported Saddam’s regime against Iran; by 2003, it was seen as an irredeemable threat that had to be removed. But the key difference between Iraq and China is that Iraq was a much weaker state whose perceived illegitimacy led directly to a U.S. invasion and regime change. With China, the legitimacy barrier prevents pragmatic engagement but does not lead (at least not yet, and thankfully among not too many) to regime-change fantasies in the same way.
So, to answer your question: The legitimacy barrier does not apply universally to all autocracies or adversarial states. It applies when the U.S. frames a state as fundamentally incompatible with the moral and ideological underpinnings of the global order as the U.S. sees it, even in the absence of major transgressive behavior. Chile under Pinochet was spared because it aligned with U.S. ideological priorities. Russia and Iran have faced varying degrees of delegitimization, but not in a way that fully mirrors China’s case. China, uniquely, represents a systemic ideological challenge to the post-Cold War U.S. worldview — one that, I argue, makes pragmatic engagement difficult, even when it would be in America's interests.
In short, the test isn’t whether a state is autocratic or hostile, but whether the U.S. sees it as inherently illegitimate in a way that overrides pragmatic considerations. That’s the key distinction.
I do agree that in some ways there is an ideological barrier to getting things done. I certainly do buy the arguments that overintensive focus on the legitimacy of CPC government makes us miss things and mess up. I've observed some of the problems you refer to. But I'm not sure that acknowledging (publicly) the legitimacy of the CPC's government is the best, or even the only, way to solve those problems.
On Russia, I'm not certain your response engages with the substance of the objection. You say that the China model is working, so we should accept and publicly acknowledge that it has a cachet of its own. Not doing this makes the relationship worse. Doing it would make the relationship better. This is fair enough. But I'm unsure why similar arguments don't apply for Russia. If the U.S. ceased the ideological offensive against Russia, we would be able to understand Russia better, deal with them more reasonably, and co-operate where possible, et cetera.
Similarly, in the Iran case, you fairly point out that success isn't a mitigating factor for Iran as compared to the CPC. But presumably many of the arguments you make still apply. If we view the rule of the mullahs as illegitimate, we won't view their diplomacy as trustworthy, wrongly interpret their policies, overestimate the fragility of their system, and so on. These do sound like problems we have when dealing with Iran. If so, why wouldn't breaking down the legitimacy barrier help?
I should note that I think it is untrue that Chile was spared. Carter and Congress cut aid significantly and subjected Chile to all manner of criticism. Similarly, with the Shah's Iran, also a modestly successful and somewhat aligned autocracy, the cutting off of aid arguably led to the downfall of the government.
Parenthetically, we'll have to agree to disagree about whether or not there's major transgressive behaviour in the Chinese case. Even leaving aside various episodes in the past (...and where the same organisation is in power, for which the individuals responsible are in some cases officially lionised, and for which there has never really been an official reckoning, etc.), there are reasonable arguments that plenty of the specific abuses you mention exist in China today.
Is US non-acknowledgment of legitimacy (on procedural grounds) in the cases of Russia and China (and even to an extent Iran) mainly an ideological (or sanctimonious, or cynical) way of fighting against geopolitical rivals? I see little attempt in the US political discourse to question the legitimacy of governments in Saudi Arabia or Egypt, for example, one with no elections and the other with fake elections on the Russian model? Or for that matter, the US acknowledgement of the legitimacy of Israel, a geopolitical ally with real elections (outside the occupied territories, to be clear) that has committed overtly imperialistic acts similar to Russia's, something the US has eschewed since the decolonization of the Philippines?
I think the argument is valid in the case of Russia. Indeed the main reason that Mr Putin has some popularity is that he brought stability and economic recovery after the chaos in the nineties. So he can be considered a legitimate ruler of Russia, but engaging now in an illegitimate war of aggression.
The Iranian rulers delivered economic misery but have some sort of legitimacy arising from (misguided) religiosity; AFAIK that is still popular at least with a conservative part of society.
The proper comparison to China in terms of how “governance” has “delivered” benefits to its people is not between the US and China, but between China and its close cultural and geographical neighbors - Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. Kaiser, I look forward to your in-depth analysis of how the governments of those nations have “delivered” the goods for their people, compared to China!
This wasn't a comparison between the United States in China in terms of how government has performed. It's about two different foundations for legitimacy. I fear you're barking up the wrong tree. But that aside, if you insist, let's take these one by one. Japan is routinely held up by those critical of China's economic performance not as an exemplar but an object lesson: Might China face the same future Japan did as the 80s came to an end and Japan entered the first of multiple "lost decades" of almost no growth? South Korea has a population smaller than Beijing, Shanghai, and TIanjin combined and close to half the population lives in Greater Seoul. The whole population of South Korea is what, .036 that of China's. Add to that nearly 75 years of living under direct American protectorship, and I think we're not talking apples to apples any more. Do we then need to do Taiwan? An even smaller fraction, even longer American protectorship?
I have a serious suggestion for you: talk to anyone in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (again, people who share a similar cultural background with China) if they think China’s one-party, no elections system is something they should adopt (or re-adopt) their own country (or province). Ask them whether governmental legitimacy rests simply in outcomes rather than procedures. I don’t think it’ll be 100% who would question the legitimacy of the Chinese government, but I think it’ll be solid majorities in all three who agree on this fundamental principle: a government that has never allowed itself to be subject to a free and fair election is in fact not legitimate. But I’m open to be contradicted on this assertion - with evidence.
Who is talking about having them adopt China's system? How do you conclude that this is something I would endorse? In any case, I would be happy to administer your test on people if the questions weren't leading — that is, they would need to ask, "Is there more than one way for a government to enjoy political legitimacy?" or something to that effect.
More interestingly, your response seems to suggest to me that you're also someone who believes that the ballot box is the only possible basis of legitimacy, yeah? So all states outside of a few Greek city-states until the late 18th century were illegitimate, and in that and the following two centuries, a huge portion were also illegitimate?
Finally, can we at least agree that you're not going to do this "....but Taiwan???" comment on every post of mine you take issue with? This is at least the third time you've done it and I'm sensing serious deja vu, having to talk about scale and historical conditions again and again.
I promise to not bring up Taiwan if you would at least think of it once in a while while discussing the very complicated relationship between China and the US - since one can reasonably argue that the status of Taiwan has always been, and remains, a critical component of that relationship!
But yes, I brought up ballot boxes as being essential for “legitimacy” because it’s a notion shared by most of the world, and in virtually every modern state outside of China. Of course it’s not just free and fair elections - it’s also an independent press, independent judiciary and constitutional rights for citizens that the government cannot violate. These are not American values, not even western values - anymore. That’s why I brought up Japan, SK and Taiwan. These principles for what constitutes legitimate governance are in fact widely accepted in the Sinosphere (including Singapore) outside of the Mainland. These principles would surely take root in China again, as they did briefly in the late 80’s, if only the government would allow them to be discussed.
Seriously, can anyone in China even debate openly (in print, for the record) the suitability of “ballot boxes” for Chinese governance, as you and I might? The answer is no. It’s a notion that nobody can openly argue for - and you’re okay with that?
I'm not "okay with that" in an abstract sense. My personal preference would be for not only the ability to discuss that openly in China, but for a more directly participatory procedural form to take hold in China. But I weigh the exigencies, understand that there's a strong case against leaping toward that with all the messiness that might entail, recognize what electoral systems must now look like from the point of view of many Chinese who conclude that they're better off without them, and ultimately accept that different states will prioritize things differently. I simply don't believe that arguments suggesting that just because small polities, with their very specific circumstances, can have successful electoral political systems that QED the mainland can do exactly the same. Meanwhile, regarding China's government as illegitimate because it isn't democratic sets back the project of eventual democratization, and for what?
I have a feeling both of you may be missing part of the point about Taiwan. Of course its economic development and the maintenance of its rulership (both before and after the transition from Leninism to electoral democracy) were dependent on US patronage. Of course it's small. Everyone knows that. But today, its government can claim *both* procedural and performance legitimacy. I think most people, worldwide, would argue that, performance legitimacy held constant, procedural legitimacy on top of it is better than the lack thereof. And I'm not sure the scale argument holds water, though if it does, it means large countries would ideally be split up, something a half-century Cascadian like me would consider a consummation devoutly to be wished. People who accepted some of the rougher parts of China's governance as inevitable even if it they were not desirable, often used to say things like 中国人口太多，没办法 and similar rather thought-free mantras.
I don't think the essay argued against procedural legitimacy or devalued it; neither did Kaiser in the comments. Personally, I am not sure whether procedural legitimacy — specifically democratic institutions — holding performance, is "better," but even if I could make the case succinctly, which I cannot, it is just a hunch, and not worth the keystrokes.
The question raised here is whether democratic institutions should be universal and whether these institutions form the basis of state legitimacy. I cannot recall this essay arguing that it isn't plausible or even likely for China to be counterfactually both economically advanced (and dare I say socially progressive) AND democratic; I get the impression that Kaiser in his "Priority Pluralism" essay makes room for the opposite. Some critical of this essay are saying that China should exhibit democratic institutions in order to be legitimate, and they are justifying this claim by naming other states that have achieved performance and procedural legitimacy. Notably, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. (Absent, parenthetically, are Vietnam or Singapore; maybe we question the legitimacy of these states, too.)
There is substance to Kaiser's skepticism that state legitimacy is founded on democratic institutions: (to provide a simple Lockian interpretation) property rights, legal due process, freedom of thought in expression and dissemination, and the election of government by citizenry. I cannot and don't want to speak for Kaiser, so here is my own skepticism, not only in context of China, but more broadly: 1) state legitimacy seems to mean something other than "governing in democracy", and 2) if legitimacy means something different, can we talk about state legitimacy as rooted in something else? In this case, economic performance and governmental responsiveness. Note that the burden of proof is on the proponents of legitimacy based on democratic institutions.
As such, even if I grant you that China would be hundreds of times wealthier or better governed (whatever that means) if it were democratic, it is not evidence against (1) that state legitimacy means something different to democratic governance. Simply put: so what? states that don't live up to their full economic and social potentials are not legitimate? Then what about India or Greece? Kaiser, in fact, offers a large class of legitimate — at least on first impression — regimes to poke at this association. The preponderance of states in history are not democracies, direct or indirect; they cannot all be illegitimate, so take your pick.
However, I will elaborate on two more: polemically, England was not a democracy till the 20th century — 1918 to be exact. (Unless the disenfranchisement of women can be dismissed as an irrelevant deviation in light of...Britain's beautifully idealistic constitutional framework.) And the US lacked free and fair electoral process — much less civil protection and social equality — for much of its racial minorities till the second half of the 20th century, when, well, racism was vanquished once and for all.
How do we then understand the legitimacy of these governments prior to the 20th century? Were these governments legitimate, and to whom? If these were legitimate governments, when (if ever) is a government presiding over an unjust society — and I hope you agree that apartheid states are unjust — deemed illegitimate? Is justice irrelevant, and then why would democracy be a legitimizing factor? If these governments were not illegitimate, why not, when roughly half of the adult population could not and did not vote to legitimize it, as is the case of prewar England — say nothing of the conditions in the colonial and commonwealth territories?
If these were illegitimate states, can we then characterize historic exercises of state powers as mere coercive power dressed up as democratic governance by and for the white male? Absurd! Can these states gain their legitimacy? Obviously! Are these states legitimate when they ultimately redeem themselves through the long arcs of history? Have the US and Britain redeemed themselves?
None of this is to justify China's domestic and foreign policies that genuinely conflict with our values and even our interests. Neither am I requiring that the governments in the US or UK be illegitimate in the present or historically, but I hope I made a pseudo-Socratic point that maybe legitimacy isn't as intuitively straightforward as we might initially think. And applied to China, as the essay points out quite convincingly, how we view, among the facets of CCP governance, the exercise of state power ought not to be similarly narrow.
I agree that legitimacy by elections isn't a universal principle; in history, some of the very worst governments have been elected by majorities. European fascists, African "big men" or Latin American caudillos all have won majorities - and now we have the US following the same path. I also agree that diplomacy can't achieve much if one side considers the other a priori illegitimate.
But I disagree that there are no universal values at all. To me, rights of the individual are paramount. That's the idea that every human as such has rights, independent of belonging to any group of religion, race, party affiliation, belonging to a "disadvantaged" group or whatever. The test for any government is whether an individual can defend those rights in independent courts, even against the state himself. That is now the last line of defence in the US against creeping authoritarianism, and it is also the point where China fails the test. It's also the reason why Chinese people like moving some of their assets (and their families) into countries where such individual rights are respected. In that sense, the Chinese government indeed does lack some legitimacy in the eyes of its own citizens.
Thanks for your reply Kaiser! I remember that excellent essay of yours; we even had a brief discussion about it in the comments section:-).
Since then, unfortunately things changed and the US isn't any longer in the business of promoting universal standards of decency and humanity; so I felt compelled to speak out in favour of those unfashionable principles. I hope you will help in that endeavour.
Thank you again for your insightful observations Kaiser. As a student of early Chinese history this essay articulates a great deal of what I have been privately pondering but have been struggling to come to terms with. I look forward to pondering it more deeply and perhaps following up with more questions and comments. Please keep doing what you are doing-offer thoughtful, critical, commentary on what you perceive happening on both sides of the divide.
It seems to me this essay (which I consider brilliant and thought-provoking) leaves out a couple of factors that are alluded to in the priority pluralism essay: free expression and oppression of certain social groups. Why do they belong in a legitimacy discussion when you covered them in another context? I'll try to explain.
First, free expression. Rather than evaluate countries on a democratic-to-authoritarian scale based solely on their methods of choosing leaders (which is what the US popular discourse does: elections=democracy; no elections=dictatorship or authoritarianism), I think it's much more productive, and fairer, to consider democracy to be a constellation of things, such as The Economist uses in its yearly Democracy Index. Most people on this page probably know about it (unless you are so repulsed by classical liberalism that you refuse to look at The Economist), but its five factors are 1. Electoral process and pluralism 2. Functioning of government 3. Political Participation 4. Political Culture 5. Civil Liberties. Thinking of democracy this way blurs the distinction between procedural and performative democracy. Certainly #5, Civil Liberties, is a performative factor (as is #2, functioning of government); it's something the state allows or promotes and it's something that most citizens who have it find to be a benefit of living in such a state, sometimes more than the material benefits that the essay considers to be the main factors in the evaluation of performance, and thus of performative legitimacy. China rates very low on that criterion, but of course it's not a universal criterion, or maybe it's universal in the sense that everyone values a certain version or a certain degree of it, but the extent and way it is valued differs greatly in different value systems. But if citizens don't value civil liberties very highly, and still support their government, the lack of civil liberties doesn't greatly diminish that government's legitimacy. At the same time, one could certainly argue that at present, China's government functions as well or better (at least in some areas) as the US government, for example in restricting gun homicides or providing convenient public transportation. So even by these measures, considered as part of democracy, China's government has a measure of legitimacy.
Second, oppression of social groups. The US government until 1965 actively oppressed Black people in some places, and Asian people in others, perhaps to a lesser degree. 1965 was the legal equivalent of 1865-67 constitutionally, and one could say that the US was at its most democratic between the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts and Citizens United. But even after Citizens United, racial discrimination has remained illegal in the US. It is perfectly legal, in fact policy, as much in Xinjiang and Tibet in 2025 as it was in Alabama and South Carolina in 1925. This is where the question of legitimacy of the PRC state comes into question. The state actively oppresses people based on their ethnicity. That means that it is not legitimate in the eyes of a certain of its citizens.
But in the end, I suppose legitimacy, like democracy, is not an either-or. No government has the support of every one of its citizens. So where is the dividing line? What do we say about Maduro's Venezuela or Assad's Syria or even al-Sharaa's Syria? Are they legitimate *enough* to deal with constructively?
Does this argument also apply to, say, Russia, or Iran? What about historical examples of other autocratic states with economic success, like Chile under Pinochet? Or even Saddam's Iraq, which was a modestly economically successful state?
Many of the comments you make here also apply to those states. Ceasing the ideological counteroffensive against those states would probably make engagement easier. It might make it easier to predict what those states will do next. It might make it easier to co-operate in some regards with those states.
If the argument doesn't apply to Russia, Iran, or Pinochet's Chile, why not?
Thanks for this thoughtful comment. You're absolutely right to ask whether the framework I’ve outlined applies to other states — Russia, Iran, Pinochet’s Chile, or even Saddam’s Iraq. It’s a useful test of the argument.
At a broad level, the "legitimacy barrier" describes a situation where deep-seated ideological precommitments prevent one state — here, the United States — from recognizing another as a legitimate actor in the international system, regardless of that state's actual behavior. This manifests in a fundamental unwillingness to engage pragmatically, a default tendency to assume hostile intent, and a predisposition to seek not just policy change but regime change.
To determine whether this framework applies to the cases you mention, we need to ask: Has the U.S. refused to engage pragmatically with these states, irrespective of their actual conduct, because it sees them as inherently illegitimate? Or has the opprobrium stemmed from specific actions — invasions of other sovereign states, mass disappearances and other forms of brutal internal repression, sponsorship of terrorism, and so forth?
Russia: There is certainly a moralizing discourse around Russia, particularly in the post-2014 period, arguably further back to Putin's war in Georgia. Russia has been sanctioned and shunned at times, but never in a way that completely foreclosed engagement. The deep ideological hostility toward Russia existed during the Soviet period, but it was then even layered over a history of realpolitik engagement.
Iran: Here, the "legitimacy barrier" applies much more fully. The U.S. has refused to recognize the Islamic Republic as a legitimate actor since 1979, regardless of its actual policies. Even when Iran was abiding by the terms of the JCPOA, the deal was torpedoed because of the assumption that Iran’s government, by its nature, could never be trusted. That said, "performance," here, would also be hard to cite in Iran's defense — certainly not to the extent it can, as I argue, be cited in China's case.
Pinochet’s Chile: I view this more as an instructive counterexample. Pinochet’s regime was an autocracy, yet it was never viewed as inherently illegitimate by the U.S. government —precisely because it aligned ideologically with U.S. interests during the Cold War. This underscores that the legitimacy barrier is not about democracy versus autocracy, but can be overridden by other goals that shape American foreign policy.
Saddam’s Iraq: U.S. policy toward Iraq shifted dramatically over time. In the 1980s, the U.S. supported Saddam’s regime against Iran; by 2003, it was seen as an irredeemable threat that had to be removed. But the key difference between Iraq and China is that Iraq was a much weaker state whose perceived illegitimacy led directly to a U.S. invasion and regime change. With China, the legitimacy barrier prevents pragmatic engagement but does not lead (at least not yet, and thankfully among not too many) to regime-change fantasies in the same way.
So, to answer your question: The legitimacy barrier does not apply universally to all autocracies or adversarial states. It applies when the U.S. frames a state as fundamentally incompatible with the moral and ideological underpinnings of the global order as the U.S. sees it, even in the absence of major transgressive behavior. Chile under Pinochet was spared because it aligned with U.S. ideological priorities. Russia and Iran have faced varying degrees of delegitimization, but not in a way that fully mirrors China’s case. China, uniquely, represents a systemic ideological challenge to the post-Cold War U.S. worldview — one that, I argue, makes pragmatic engagement difficult, even when it would be in America's interests.
In short, the test isn’t whether a state is autocratic or hostile, but whether the U.S. sees it as inherently illegitimate in a way that overrides pragmatic considerations. That’s the key distinction.
I do agree that in some ways there is an ideological barrier to getting things done. I certainly do buy the arguments that overintensive focus on the legitimacy of CPC government makes us miss things and mess up. I've observed some of the problems you refer to. But I'm not sure that acknowledging (publicly) the legitimacy of the CPC's government is the best, or even the only, way to solve those problems.
On Russia, I'm not certain your response engages with the substance of the objection. You say that the China model is working, so we should accept and publicly acknowledge that it has a cachet of its own. Not doing this makes the relationship worse. Doing it would make the relationship better. This is fair enough. But I'm unsure why similar arguments don't apply for Russia. If the U.S. ceased the ideological offensive against Russia, we would be able to understand Russia better, deal with them more reasonably, and co-operate where possible, et cetera.
Similarly, in the Iran case, you fairly point out that success isn't a mitigating factor for Iran as compared to the CPC. But presumably many of the arguments you make still apply. If we view the rule of the mullahs as illegitimate, we won't view their diplomacy as trustworthy, wrongly interpret their policies, overestimate the fragility of their system, and so on. These do sound like problems we have when dealing with Iran. If so, why wouldn't breaking down the legitimacy barrier help?
I should note that I think it is untrue that Chile was spared. Carter and Congress cut aid significantly and subjected Chile to all manner of criticism. Similarly, with the Shah's Iran, also a modestly successful and somewhat aligned autocracy, the cutting off of aid arguably led to the downfall of the government.
Parenthetically, we'll have to agree to disagree about whether or not there's major transgressive behaviour in the Chinese case. Even leaving aside various episodes in the past (...and where the same organisation is in power, for which the individuals responsible are in some cases officially lionised, and for which there has never really been an official reckoning, etc.), there are reasonable arguments that plenty of the specific abuses you mention exist in China today.
Is US non-acknowledgment of legitimacy (on procedural grounds) in the cases of Russia and China (and even to an extent Iran) mainly an ideological (or sanctimonious, or cynical) way of fighting against geopolitical rivals? I see little attempt in the US political discourse to question the legitimacy of governments in Saudi Arabia or Egypt, for example, one with no elections and the other with fake elections on the Russian model? Or for that matter, the US acknowledgement of the legitimacy of Israel, a geopolitical ally with real elections (outside the occupied territories, to be clear) that has committed overtly imperialistic acts similar to Russia's, something the US has eschewed since the decolonization of the Philippines?
I think the argument is valid in the case of Russia. Indeed the main reason that Mr Putin has some popularity is that he brought stability and economic recovery after the chaos in the nineties. So he can be considered a legitimate ruler of Russia, but engaging now in an illegitimate war of aggression.
The Iranian rulers delivered economic misery but have some sort of legitimacy arising from (misguided) religiosity; AFAIK that is still popular at least with a conservative part of society.
The proper comparison to China in terms of how “governance” has “delivered” benefits to its people is not between the US and China, but between China and its close cultural and geographical neighbors - Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. Kaiser, I look forward to your in-depth analysis of how the governments of those nations have “delivered” the goods for their people, compared to China!
This wasn't a comparison between the United States in China in terms of how government has performed. It's about two different foundations for legitimacy. I fear you're barking up the wrong tree. But that aside, if you insist, let's take these one by one. Japan is routinely held up by those critical of China's economic performance not as an exemplar but an object lesson: Might China face the same future Japan did as the 80s came to an end and Japan entered the first of multiple "lost decades" of almost no growth? South Korea has a population smaller than Beijing, Shanghai, and TIanjin combined and close to half the population lives in Greater Seoul. The whole population of South Korea is what, .036 that of China's. Add to that nearly 75 years of living under direct American protectorship, and I think we're not talking apples to apples any more. Do we then need to do Taiwan? An even smaller fraction, even longer American protectorship?
I have a serious suggestion for you: talk to anyone in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (again, people who share a similar cultural background with China) if they think China’s one-party, no elections system is something they should adopt (or re-adopt) their own country (or province). Ask them whether governmental legitimacy rests simply in outcomes rather than procedures. I don’t think it’ll be 100% who would question the legitimacy of the Chinese government, but I think it’ll be solid majorities in all three who agree on this fundamental principle: a government that has never allowed itself to be subject to a free and fair election is in fact not legitimate. But I’m open to be contradicted on this assertion - with evidence.
Who is talking about having them adopt China's system? How do you conclude that this is something I would endorse? In any case, I would be happy to administer your test on people if the questions weren't leading — that is, they would need to ask, "Is there more than one way for a government to enjoy political legitimacy?" or something to that effect.
More interestingly, your response seems to suggest to me that you're also someone who believes that the ballot box is the only possible basis of legitimacy, yeah? So all states outside of a few Greek city-states until the late 18th century were illegitimate, and in that and the following two centuries, a huge portion were also illegitimate?
Finally, can we at least agree that you're not going to do this "....but Taiwan???" comment on every post of mine you take issue with? This is at least the third time you've done it and I'm sensing serious deja vu, having to talk about scale and historical conditions again and again.
I promise to not bring up Taiwan if you would at least think of it once in a while while discussing the very complicated relationship between China and the US - since one can reasonably argue that the status of Taiwan has always been, and remains, a critical component of that relationship!
But yes, I brought up ballot boxes as being essential for “legitimacy” because it’s a notion shared by most of the world, and in virtually every modern state outside of China. Of course it’s not just free and fair elections - it’s also an independent press, independent judiciary and constitutional rights for citizens that the government cannot violate. These are not American values, not even western values - anymore. That’s why I brought up Japan, SK and Taiwan. These principles for what constitutes legitimate governance are in fact widely accepted in the Sinosphere (including Singapore) outside of the Mainland. These principles would surely take root in China again, as they did briefly in the late 80’s, if only the government would allow them to be discussed.
Seriously, can anyone in China even debate openly (in print, for the record) the suitability of “ballot boxes” for Chinese governance, as you and I might? The answer is no. It’s a notion that nobody can openly argue for - and you’re okay with that?
I'm not "okay with that" in an abstract sense. My personal preference would be for not only the ability to discuss that openly in China, but for a more directly participatory procedural form to take hold in China. But I weigh the exigencies, understand that there's a strong case against leaping toward that with all the messiness that might entail, recognize what electoral systems must now look like from the point of view of many Chinese who conclude that they're better off without them, and ultimately accept that different states will prioritize things differently. I simply don't believe that arguments suggesting that just because small polities, with their very specific circumstances, can have successful electoral political systems that QED the mainland can do exactly the same. Meanwhile, regarding China's government as illegitimate because it isn't democratic sets back the project of eventual democratization, and for what?
I have a feeling both of you may be missing part of the point about Taiwan. Of course its economic development and the maintenance of its rulership (both before and after the transition from Leninism to electoral democracy) were dependent on US patronage. Of course it's small. Everyone knows that. But today, its government can claim *both* procedural and performance legitimacy. I think most people, worldwide, would argue that, performance legitimacy held constant, procedural legitimacy on top of it is better than the lack thereof. And I'm not sure the scale argument holds water, though if it does, it means large countries would ideally be split up, something a half-century Cascadian like me would consider a consummation devoutly to be wished. People who accepted some of the rougher parts of China's governance as inevitable even if it they were not desirable, often used to say things like 中国人口太多，没办法 and similar rather thought-free mantras.
I don't think the essay argued against procedural legitimacy or devalued it; neither did Kaiser in the comments. Personally, I am not sure whether procedural legitimacy — specifically democratic institutions — holding performance, is "better," but even if I could make the case succinctly, which I cannot, it is just a hunch, and not worth the keystrokes.
The question raised here is whether democratic institutions should be universal and whether these institutions form the basis of state legitimacy. I cannot recall this essay arguing that it isn't plausible or even likely for China to be counterfactually both economically advanced (and dare I say socially progressive) AND democratic; I get the impression that Kaiser in his "Priority Pluralism" essay makes room for the opposite. Some critical of this essay are saying that China should exhibit democratic institutions in order to be legitimate, and they are justifying this claim by naming other states that have achieved performance and procedural legitimacy. Notably, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. (Absent, parenthetically, are Vietnam or Singapore; maybe we question the legitimacy of these states, too.)
There is substance to Kaiser's skepticism that state legitimacy is founded on democratic institutions: (to provide a simple Lockian interpretation) property rights, legal due process, freedom of thought in expression and dissemination, and the election of government by citizenry. I cannot and don't want to speak for Kaiser, so here is my own skepticism, not only in context of China, but more broadly: 1) state legitimacy seems to mean something other than "governing in democracy", and 2) if legitimacy means something different, can we talk about state legitimacy as rooted in something else? In this case, economic performance and governmental responsiveness. Note that the burden of proof is on the proponents of legitimacy based on democratic institutions.
As such, even if I grant you that China would be hundreds of times wealthier or better governed (whatever that means) if it were democratic, it is not evidence against (1) that state legitimacy means something different to democratic governance. Simply put: so what? states that don't live up to their full economic and social potentials are not legitimate? Then what about India or Greece? Kaiser, in fact, offers a large class of legitimate — at least on first impression — regimes to poke at this association. The preponderance of states in history are not democracies, direct or indirect; they cannot all be illegitimate, so take your pick.
However, I will elaborate on two more: polemically, England was not a democracy till the 20th century — 1918 to be exact. (Unless the disenfranchisement of women can be dismissed as an irrelevant deviation in light of...Britain's beautifully idealistic constitutional framework.) And the US lacked free and fair electoral process — much less civil protection and social equality — for much of its racial minorities till the second half of the 20th century, when, well, racism was vanquished once and for all.
How do we then understand the legitimacy of these governments prior to the 20th century? Were these governments legitimate, and to whom? If these were legitimate governments, when (if ever) is a government presiding over an unjust society — and I hope you agree that apartheid states are unjust — deemed illegitimate? Is justice irrelevant, and then why would democracy be a legitimizing factor? If these governments were not illegitimate, why not, when roughly half of the adult population could not and did not vote to legitimize it, as is the case of prewar England — say nothing of the conditions in the colonial and commonwealth territories?
If these were illegitimate states, can we then characterize historic exercises of state powers as mere coercive power dressed up as democratic governance by and for the white male? Absurd! Can these states gain their legitimacy? Obviously! Are these states legitimate when they ultimately redeem themselves through the long arcs of history? Have the US and Britain redeemed themselves?
None of this is to justify China's domestic and foreign policies that genuinely conflict with our values and even our interests. Neither am I requiring that the governments in the US or UK be illegitimate in the present or historically, but I hope I made a pseudo-Socratic point that maybe legitimacy isn't as intuitively straightforward as we might initially think. And applied to China, as the essay points out quite convincingly, how we view, among the facets of CCP governance, the exercise of state power ought not to be similarly narrow.
I agree that legitimacy by elections isn't a universal principle; in history, some of the very worst governments have been elected by majorities. European fascists, African "big men" or Latin American caudillos all have won majorities - and now we have the US following the same path. I also agree that diplomacy can't achieve much if one side considers the other a priori illegitimate.
But I disagree that there are no universal values at all. To me, rights of the individual are paramount. That's the idea that every human as such has rights, independent of belonging to any group of religion, race, party affiliation, belonging to a "disadvantaged" group or whatever. The test for any government is whether an individual can defend those rights in independent courts, even against the state himself. That is now the last line of defence in the US against creeping authoritarianism, and it is also the point where China fails the test. It's also the reason why Chinese people like moving some of their assets (and their families) into countries where such individual rights are respected. In that sense, the Chinese government indeed does lack some legitimacy in the eyes of its own citizens.
I most certainly don't make the case — and neither does China — that there are no univeral values. Please see my long essay on priority pluralism, here: https://www.sinicapodcast.com/p/priority-pluralism-rethinking-universal?utm_source=publication-search
Thanks for your reply Kaiser! I remember that excellent essay of yours; we even had a brief discussion about it in the comments section:-).
Since then, unfortunately things changed and the US isn't any longer in the business of promoting universal standards of decency and humanity; so I felt compelled to speak out in favour of those unfashionable principles. I hope you will help in that endeavour.
I don't think anyone is worried about the CCP's legitimacy. The CCP is just a fact to be dealt with. They shame themselves, in Western eyes.
Thank you again for your insightful observations Kaiser. As a student of early Chinese history this essay articulates a great deal of what I have been privately pondering but have been struggling to come to terms with. I look forward to pondering it more deeply and perhaps following up with more questions and comments. Please keep doing what you are doing-offer thoughtful, critical, commentary on what you perceive happening on both sides of the divide.
It seems to me this essay (which I consider brilliant and thought-provoking) leaves out a couple of factors that are alluded to in the priority pluralism essay: free expression and oppression of certain social groups. Why do they belong in a legitimacy discussion when you covered them in another context? I'll try to explain.
First, free expression. Rather than evaluate countries on a democratic-to-authoritarian scale based solely on their methods of choosing leaders (which is what the US popular discourse does: elections=democracy; no elections=dictatorship or authoritarianism), I think it's much more productive, and fairer, to consider democracy to be a constellation of things, such as The Economist uses in its yearly Democracy Index. Most people on this page probably know about it (unless you are so repulsed by classical liberalism that you refuse to look at The Economist), but its five factors are 1. Electoral process and pluralism 2. Functioning of government 3. Political Participation 4. Political Culture 5. Civil Liberties. Thinking of democracy this way blurs the distinction between procedural and performative democracy. Certainly #5, Civil Liberties, is a performative factor (as is #2, functioning of government); it's something the state allows or promotes and it's something that most citizens who have it find to be a benefit of living in such a state, sometimes more than the material benefits that the essay considers to be the main factors in the evaluation of performance, and thus of performative legitimacy. China rates very low on that criterion, but of course it's not a universal criterion, or maybe it's universal in the sense that everyone values a certain version or a certain degree of it, but the extent and way it is valued differs greatly in different value systems. But if citizens don't value civil liberties very highly, and still support their government, the lack of civil liberties doesn't greatly diminish that government's legitimacy. At the same time, one could certainly argue that at present, China's government functions as well or better (at least in some areas) as the US government, for example in restricting gun homicides or providing convenient public transportation. So even by these measures, considered as part of democracy, China's government has a measure of legitimacy.
Second, oppression of social groups. The US government until 1965 actively oppressed Black people in some places, and Asian people in others, perhaps to a lesser degree. 1965 was the legal equivalent of 1865-67 constitutionally, and one could say that the US was at its most democratic between the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts and Citizens United. But even after Citizens United, racial discrimination has remained illegal in the US. It is perfectly legal, in fact policy, as much in Xinjiang and Tibet in 2025 as it was in Alabama and South Carolina in 1925. This is where the question of legitimacy of the PRC state comes into question. The state actively oppresses people based on their ethnicity. That means that it is not legitimate in the eyes of a certain of its citizens.
But in the end, I suppose legitimacy, like democracy, is not an either-or. No government has the support of every one of its citizens. So where is the dividing line? What do we say about Maduro's Venezuela or Assad's Syria or even al-Sharaa's Syria? Are they legitimate *enough* to deal with constructively?