民主, 普世價值觀 欺騙 不普世

普世價值觀真的“普世”嗎

STEVEN ERLANGER  2023年9月28日

拜登總統於9月19日在紐約聯合國大會上發表講話。 DAVE SANDERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

本文來自雅典民主論壇與《紐約時報》合作的特別報道。

 

1989年柏林牆的倒塌在西方被頌為自由民主對威權共產主義的勝利，這在當時引發了關於世界已經到了所謂曆史終結的討論，這種觀點認為，無論好壞，自由民主是大多數人過上更好生活的默認設置。

 

自由民主的價值觀——強調所有人的個人權利和自由——被聯合國奉為圭臬，用美國《獨立宣言》的話來說，它被視為“不言而喻”的真理。換句話說，它被廣泛接受，以至於無需證明。

 

但真的是這樣嗎？這個問題現在變得更加重要，因為自由民主似乎在文化、宗教和種族問題上正墮入激烈的兩極分化，尤其是在被全球視為典範的美國。

 

這是德國馬歇爾基金會的保衛民主聯盟主任勞拉·梭頓的觀點。

 

“文化兩極分化是件大事，但民主卻沒能解決問題，”梭頓說。她是本周在希臘雅典民主論壇上發表演說的嘉賓之一，該論壇是與《紐約時報》合作舉辦的。“人們覺得這個體係腐敗，金錢的影響力太大，存在精英俘獲——這個體係不能推動個體的進步”，或者說曾經可以，現在不行了。

 

而世界上的所有威權領導人無論多麽追求自身利益，都認為更嚴格的控製和“共同體”能提供更多更快的發展，給普通人帶來更大利益，即使他們的個人權利和聲音被納入更大的集體利益之中。

 

8月，在南非約翰內斯堡舉行的金磚國家領導人峰會的最後一天，中國國家主席習近平出席中非領導人圓桌對話會。 ALET PRETORIUS/REUTERS

 

無論是在俄羅斯、中國，還是在非洲甚至歐洲的部分地區，專製領導人和極右翼政客都可以辯稱“今天看來，民主是一團糟，效率低下，無法帶來經濟增長”，梭頓說，“他們認為，他們需要威權政府來讓人們擺脫貧困，他們認為社會的健康、增長和繁榮比個人的權利更重要。”

 

因此，地緣政治又回來了，尤其是在華盛頓的霸權日益受到挑戰之時。

 

諾貝爾獎得主、哥倫比亞大學經濟學教授約瑟夫·斯蒂格利茨最近表示，西方民主國家推動的經濟理論“是全球化的基礎，也是世界貿易組織的基礎，這些理論已經完全失去了信譽”，並導致了巨大的不平等。

 

“我們錯了，”他在今年的一場辯論上，以及隨後在意大利切爾諾比奧舉行的年度國際經濟會議安布羅塞蒂論壇上的一次談話中說。“規則是美國製定的，但舊的基於規則的國際貿易體係已經破裂，很難修複。”

 

《聯合國憲章》和《世界人權宣言》都沒有提到民主。但德國外交關係委員會主任、經濟學家岡特拉姆·沃爾夫指出，《聯合國憲章》確實描述了普世價值，盡管威權主義者堅持認為，自由和人權應該更多地從整體上去理解。“民主可能是一個西方概念，”他說。“但這也是東方許多人——甚至大多數人——希望擁有的東西。”

 

他還說，討論全球南方發展中國家和欠發達國家的不滿是一回事，這些不滿主要是經濟方麵的。“但這種辯論也會被一些獨裁者利用，他們希望保住自己的權力，避免與爭取自由的國內民眾發生衝突。”

 

德國高級外交官托馬斯·巴格在《華盛頓季刊》(Washington Quarterly)上發表的一篇重要文章中寫道，就連對1989年發生的一係列事件的解釋也是不全麵的，甚至是傲慢的。那一年也代表了後蘇聯國家主權的回歸，這意味著它們有能力為自己創造價值觀，或者對自由民主國家所接受的價值觀持不同意見。

 

歐盟委員會主席烏蘇拉·馮德萊恩於9月在法國斯特拉斯堡向歐洲議會發表了歐盟國情谘文。 YVES HERMAN/REUTERS

 

例如，在匈牙利，對“非自由主義民主”的擁護對法治和司法獨立構成了重大挑戰，更不用說對歐盟決定的權威性構成的挑戰了。波蘭也拒絕了日益世俗化的布魯塞爾定義歐洲價值觀的努力，認為建立在主要宗教傳統基礎上的傳統價值觀更為重要——舉一個明顯的例子，波蘭人堅信婚姻必須隻存在於一男一女之間。

這是伊萬·克拉斯蒂夫和斯蒂芬·霍姆斯在《失敗之光》(The Light That Failed)一書中提出的一個尖銳論點，他們在書中描述了新的民主領導人在剛剛擺脫蘇聯幾十年的意識形態強加的束縛後，又犯下了“模仿西方化”的錯誤。他們認為，結果是一種廣泛的政治怨恨，以及對民族身份和尊嚴的重申，以及對自由民主和被視為強加給本國的所謂的“普世”價值觀的強烈抵製。

1989年，西方也普遍認為，一個更加繁榮的中國將走向更民主的自由主義。隻有允許更多的個人和企業自由，中國才能保持奇跡般的經濟增長。現在看來，這個假設存在極大的偏差——無疑是言之過早了。

作為回應，在1959年至1990年期間擔任新加坡開國總理的李光耀反對普世價值的理念，聲稱亞洲或“儒家”價值觀同樣有效，這種價值觀更強調家庭和社區，而不是個人權利。在一些人看來，他的觀點是在為人們普遍視為的新加坡家長式作風和高壓政府辯護。但這也是對許多人眼中的西方文化帝國主義的回應，這種文化帝國主義是老一輩傳教士努力使世界皈依基督教的延伸。

長期擔任馬來西亞威權領導人的馬哈蒂爾·穆罕默德常說，所謂的“普世價值觀”是西方價值觀，而亞洲價值觀才是真正的普世的。

這是中國熱切支持的一個論點，它以共產黨及國家最高領導人習近平所定義的安全和集體利益為名，越來越多地壓製個人的言論、集會甚至行動的自由。

中國重塑國際體製的行動引發了與西方的明確對抗，除此之外，巴黎智庫蒙田研究所的多米尼克·莫西說，這其中還關係到一種情感上的強烈怨恨。他在接受采訪時說，當韓國和日本領導人在戴維營與拜登總統見麵時，中國外長王毅在中國發表講話時說，“不管你把頭發染得再黃、鼻子修得再尖，你也變不了歐美人，變不成西方人。”

王毅說，西方人分不清亞洲人誰是誰，並告誡“要知道自己的根在什麽地方”。他呼籲日本和韓國這兩個民主國家與中國合作，“如果中日韓三國攜手合作的話，符合三國的共同利益，可以共同繁榮，振興東亞，振興亞洲，造福世界。”

在莫西看來，中國是在揚“地理價值觀”、抑“價值觀地理”，日本和韓國則代表著亞洲西方。

亞洲協會政策研究所的中國專家陸克(Philippe Le Corre)說，從文化角度的論證現在不像效率角度那麽普遍。這家智庫就與亞洲建立更緊密的關係進行了研究。中國人近年喜歡說，他們甚至有一種自己的民主，而且由黨來挑選最佳領導人可以避免出現某些國家那樣“投票選擇脫歐或選上唐納德·特朗普或走向極左或極右”。

“他們的說法是，這樣一來，他們就能有一些知道如何掌權的、負責任的領導人，”陸克說。但是近來隨著經濟放緩、新冠防疫政策受指責和黨內領導層出現突然的、未加解釋的人事變動，中國的體製似乎顯得比較脆弱。“我們的民主不完美，但至少我們有透明度，”他說。俄羅斯和中國這樣的專製國家“完全沒有”。

中國人和像新加坡的馬凱碩(Kishore Mahbubani)這樣的知名亞洲知識分子經常指責他們的批評者把人權問題當武器，假裝在論證自由和普世價值，實際上卻是在運作他們自己的政治和經濟議程。

這一看法目前在全球南方得到了更多支持。雖然並非鐵板一塊，但全球南方認為應該摒棄當下由西方主導的二戰後多邊全球秩序，轉向一個更多元、開放的係統——這個係統要承認世界已經改變，新的勢力已經崛起。

烏克蘭戰爭加劇了不滿，窮國被迫承受更高的食物和能源價格。印度外交官希夫尚卡爾·梅農在2月的《外交事務》(Foreign Affairs)上寫道：“許多發展中國家懷著疏遠和憤恨的情緒，在它們看來，烏克蘭戰爭和西方與中國的對抗背離了那些緊迫的問題，如債務、氣候變化和大流行的影響。”

金磚國家——巴西、俄羅斯、印度、中國和南非——近日決定邀請中東、非洲和拉美的六個新成員加入，充分體現了這種不滿情緒之強烈。其核心是對美國霸權的不滿，尤其是讓華盛頓可以通過貿易製裁施展巨大影響力的美元。

金磚國家的擴張，現在看來也許隻是象征性的，但在這六個國家加入後，該組織將包括37億人口，占了全球經濟的一大部分。此外它的民主成分也將大幅減少——這個由中國主導的組織引入了俄羅斯、沙特和伊朗。全部加起來共有六個民主政體、兩個專製政體、兩個君主專製政體和一個神權政體。

除了中國以外，這些國家財力上都相對較弱，但它們認為自己可以聯合起來對抗美國以及更廣泛意義上的西方，反對西方對國家行為規範的闡釋——也就是反對西方對普世價值的認知。

“許多發展中國家踴躍加入金磚的現象，不隻是體現了中國的價值中立全球化的吸引力，也體現了西方國家沒能建立起一個更包容的國際秩序，”亞洲協會政策研究所中國分析中心的牛犇(Neil Thomas)在郵件中說。

歐洲議會議員、中國專家包瑞翰(Reinhard Bütikofer)說，“中國的主導地位會增強，金磚國家會成為一個明顯傾向於專製的組織，”並且“越來越針鋒相對”。

他在采訪中說，這樣的擴張對美國和歐盟“構成嚴峻挑戰”。“我們需要向貧窮的、發展中的國家證明，歐洲想成為一個可信、可靠、公平的合作夥伴，我們的時間不多了，”他說。“如果做不到，這些國家中有許多可能會把注意力放在金磚上。”

保衛民主聯盟的梭頓說，曆史上不是沒出現過這樣有鮮明分野的時期，不過“我們這樣的老民主政體僵化了”，她說，這裏指的是北美和西歐的民主國家。“它們沒有創新；它們固守幾百年前的做法與過程，而守護權力的政黨”越來越無法代表一個多元的社會。

在莫西看來，關於價值觀的爭論在今天引起的共鳴要尖銳許多。

“民主的危機讓這個話題變得格外熱門，尤其是美國，”他說。“在法國，我們已經陷入兩極和對立，在歐洲有匈牙利、波蘭和意大利這樣非自由主義的民主政體，但都不至於像你們那樣。已經到了恐怖的程度。這對歐洲來說是個挑戰，但也是個振作起來的機遇。我們別無選擇。”

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Steven Erlanger是時報歐洲首席外交記者，常駐布魯塞爾。他此前曾在倫敦、巴黎、耶路撒冷、柏林、布拉格、莫斯科和曼穀等地進行報道。點擊查看更多關於他的信息。

翻譯：紐約時報中文網

Are Universal Values Really Universal?

The belief that individual rights are “self-evident” is being challenged, with large parts of the world instead prioritizing collective benefits.

 

President Biden speaking before the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept. 19.Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times

 By Steven Erlanger Reporting from Berlin Sept. 26, 2023

 

This article is from a special report on the Athens Democracy Forum in association with The New York Times.

---

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was celebrated in the West as a victory of liberal democracy over authoritarian communism, prompting discussion back then that the world had reached the so-called end of history, the view that for better or worse, liberal democracy was the default setting for a better life for most.

The values of liberal democracy — which emphasize individual rights and freedoms for all people — are enshrined by the United Nations and were celebrated as truths we hold “to be self-evident,” in the words of the American Declaration of Independence. In other words, so widely accepted as to require no proof.

But are they really? The question is taking on more importance now, as liberal democracy, especially in the United States, which is seen globally as a model, seems to be degrading into fierce polarization over cultural, religious and racial questions.

That is the view of Laura Thornton, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy of the German Marshall Fund.

“Cultural polarization is a big deal, but democracy is failing to deliver,” said Ms. Thornton, who will be one of the speakers at the Athens Democracy Forum in Greece this week in association with The New York Times. “People feel the system is corrupt, money has too much influence, there is elite capture — that the system doesn’t advance the individual,” or no longer does.

And the world’s authoritarian leaders, no matter how self-serving, argue that a more tightly controlled and “communitarian” system provides more and faster development, with better benefits to ordinary people, even if their individual rights and voices are subsumed to the greater, collective good.

Authoritarian leaders and far-right politicians, whether in Russia, China or parts of Africa and even Europe, can argue that “today it seems democracy is a mess, it’s not efficient, it doesn’t deliver economic growth,” Ms. Thornton said. “They argue they need authoritarian government to bring people out of poverty, and that they value the health and growth and prosperity of the community over the rights of the individual.”

So geopolitics is back, especially as Washington’s hegemony is increasingly challenged.

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate professor of economics at Columbia University, said recently that the economic theories pushed by Western democracies “that are the basis of globalization and underlie the World Trade Organization have been totally discredited” and led to enormous inequalities.

“We got it wrong,” he said in a debate this year and in a subsequent conversation at the Ambrosetti Forum, an annual international economic conference held in Cernobbio, Italy. “The U.S. wrote the rules, but the old international rules-based trading system is broken and it will be hard to repair.”

Democracy is not mentioned in either the U.N. Charter or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But the U.N. Charter does describe universal values, noted Guntram Wolff, an economist who is director of the German Council on Foreign Relations, even if the authoritarians insist that liberty and human rights should be understood more collectively. “Democracy is probably a Western concept,” he said. “But it is also one that many people in the East, if not most of them, would love to have.”

It’s one thing to debate the grievances of the Global South of developing and underdeveloped countries, which are largely economic, he added. “But the debate is also used by some dictators who want to preserve their power and avoid confronting a domestic population that strives for liberty.”

Even the events of 1989 have been interpreted incompletely and even arrogantly, wrote Thomas Bagger, a senior German diplomat, in an important essay in The Washington Quarterly. That year also represented a return to sovereignty for post-Soviet states, which meant their ability to create values for themselves or to dissent from those accepted in liberal democratic states.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers the State of the European Union address to the European Parliament, in Strasbourg, France, in September. Credit...Yves Herman/Reuters

In Hungary, for instance, the embrace of “illiberal democracy” has created major challenges to the rule of law and judicial independence, let alone to the supremacy of European Union decisions. Poland, too, has rejected the effort of an increasingly secular Brussels to define European values, arguing that traditional values founded in the main religious traditions are more important — to cite one obvious example, the conviction that marriage must be only between a man and a woman.

That is an argument advanced sharply by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes in their book, “The Light that Failed,” in which they describe how new democratic leaders, having just been freed from decades of Soviet ideological imposition, were guilty of “copycat Westernization.” The result, they argue, has been a wide political resentment, a reassertion of national identity and dignity and a deep backlash against liberal democracy and the perceived imposition of “universal” values.

In 1989, too, there was a widespread assumption in the West that a more prosperous China would move toward more democratic liberalism, that it could maintain its miraculous economic growth only if it allowed more individual and corporate freedom. That assumption now seems badly judged — certainly premature.

In reaction, Lee Kuan Yew, who served as the founding prime minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990, argued against the idea of universal values, asserting that Asian or “Confucian” values emphasized family and community more than individual rights and were just as valid. His argument was seen by some as a way to justify what was widely viewed as Singapore’s paternalistic and heavy-handed government. But it was also a response to what many saw as Western cultural imperialism, an extension of the older missionary effort to convert the world to Christianity.

Mahathir Mohamad, the longtime authoritarian leader of Malaysia, liked to say that “universal values” were Western values, while Asian values were truly universal.

That is an argument taken up avidly by China, which has increasingly repressed individual rights to freedom of speech, assembly and even movement in the name of security and the collective good, as defined by the Communist Party and its supreme leader, Xi Jinping.

In addition to the clear rivalry with the West and China’s effort to reshape international institutions, there is significant emotional resentment involved as well, said Dominique Moïsi of the Institut Montaigne, an independent think-tank in Paris. When the South Korean and Japanese leaders met with President Biden at Camp David, he said in an interview, the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, told a group in China, “No matter how yellow you dye your hair or how sharp you make your nose, you’ll never turn into a European or American; you’ll never turn into a Westerner.”

Mr. Wang said that Westerners could not tell one Asian from another and admonished, “One needs to know where one’s roots are.” He urged Japan and Korea, both democracies, to cooperate with China, saying, “It would not only suit the interests of our three countries, but also the wishes of our peoples, and together we can prosper, revitalize East Asia and enrich the world.”

For Mr. Moïsi, the Chinese are arguing for “the values of geography” against “the geography of values,” whereby Japan and South Korea represent the Asian West.

The cultural argument is less prevalent now than the efficiency argument, said Philippe Le Corre, a China expert at the Asia Society Policy Institute, a think tank that explores closer ties to Asia. The Chinese like to argue lately that they even have their own form of democracy, whereby the party picks the best leaders and in that way avoids situations where “countries vote for Brexit or elect Donald Trump or go to the far right or left,” he said.

“They argue that this way they have responsible leaders who know how to run things,” Mr. Le Corre said. But lately, the Chinese system seems more fragile, with an economic slowdown, criticism of its Covid policies and sudden, unexplained changes within the party leadership. “Our democracies are not perfect, but we at least have transparency,” he said. Autocracies like Russia and China “have none.”

The Chinese and prominent Asian intellectuals like Kishore Mahbubani of Singapore have regularly accused their critics of using human rights as a kind of cudgel, pretending to be arguing for freedom and universal values while in reality pursuing their own political and economic agendas.

That is an argument now more widely shared in the Global South, which is heterogeneous but wants the current, post-World War II, Western-dominated multilateral global order to be replaced by a more diverse, open system — one that recognizes that the world has changed and new powers have risen.

The Ukraine war has exacerbated the criticism, as poorer countries have been hit with higher food and energy prices. As an Indian diplomat, Shivshankar Menon, wrote this February in Foreign Affairs: “Alienated and resentful, many developing countries see the war in Ukraine and the West’s rivalry with China as distracting from urgent issues such as debt, climate change and the effects of the pandemic.”

The recent decision of the BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — to invite six new members from the Middle East, Africa and Latin America is a good indication of the strength of this dissatisfaction. At its heart is frustration with the dominance of the United States, and in particular, of the U.S. dollar, which allows Washington to exercise enormous power through trade sanctions.

The expansion of the BRICS may be largely symbolic for now, but if these six states join, the group will encompass 3.7 billion people and a large share of the global economy. It will also become significantly less democratic — dominated by China but embracing Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Altogether it will comprise six democracies, two authoritarian states, two autocratic monarchies and a theocracy.

Even if their financial clout beyond China is comparatively small, these countries see themselves as a potential alliance against the United States, the West more generally, and the Western interpretation of how states should behave — against the Western view of universal values.

“The enthusiasm of many developing countries to join BRICS reflects not only the appeal of China’s values-neutral globalization but also the failure of Western countries to build a more inclusive international order,” said Neil Thomas of the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis in an email.

Reinhard Bütikofer, a member of the European Parliament and an expert on China, said that “China’s dominance will increase and BRICS will become a clearly authoritarian-oriented group” and “more confrontational.”

Such expansion, he said in an interview, “means a massive challenge” for the United States and the European Union. “We don’t have many years to prove that Europe wants to be a credible, reliable, and fair partner for poor and developing countries,” he said. “If that doesn’t succeed, BRICS might become the focal point for many of these countries.”

Ms. Thornton of the Alliance for Securing Democracy noted that there have been other eras of sharp division, but “older democracies like ours are calcified,” she said, referring to those in North America and Western Europe. “They don’t innovate; they are stuck in practices and processes of centuries ago, with political parties, the gatekeepers to power,” increasingly unrepresentative in a diverse society.

For Mr. Moïsi, the argument over values has a much sharper resonance now.

“What makes the subject more topical than ever is the crisis of democracy, especially in the U.S.,” he said. “In France, we are polarized and divided, and in Europe, there are illiberal democracies like Hungary, Poland and Italy, but nothing like you. In a way it’s frightening. It’s the challenge and it may be the opportunity for Europeans to get their act together. We have no other choice.”

Steven Erlanger is The Times’s chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe, based in Berlin. He previously reported from Brussels, London, Paris, Jerusalem, Berlin, Prague, Belgrade, Washington, Moscow and Bangkok. More about Steven Erlanger