Dollars Trump Democracy in China

For years, American businesses argued that bringing capitalism to China would transform that nation into a democracy. In fact, it seems to have had the opposite effect: U.S. and other Western companies doing business in China have become defenders of authoritarianism. Of course, the lure of China for U.S. business was never the opportunity it posed for missionary work on behalf of democratic values; it was cheap labor, access to a huge market and high profit margins. That was certainly true for Apple and other corporations that offshored production to the factory cities in southern China, just across the border from Hong Kong. It was certainly true for Rupert Murdoch, who reportedly cooperated closely with government censors during a long but ultimately fruitless attempt to make inroads in the Chinese television market. Indeed, as Murdoch was successfully maneuvering to buy the Wall Street Journal, some of that paper’s China correspondents accused him of “sacrificing journalistic integrity to satisfy personal and political aims.”