WHEN A LEADER LIES - IT’S A FRAUD DONE TO A NATION

When a political narrative is advocated by a government, it starts with underlying intent and transforms itself in a falsehood that leadership is compelled to live. A build-up of such narrative to mask a truth in quick succession and weave a plethora of half-truths and lies quickly helps the leadership lose credibility and goodwill that is hard to regain.

Leaders forget that hundreds of lies cannot mask a single truth – it is crying wolf syndrome. A trust deficit that is never bridged- People are unforgiving and intolerant to lies in democracies. Authoritarian governments do not face such dilemmas. Authoritarian governments can strategically plan for the long term, unencumbered by regular elections, public opinion and Judiciary, Press etc.

Yet the autocratic ascent and democratic descent is contrary to historical fact. Autocracies have often not outlived the autocrats. But democracies have survived beyond its chosen leaders, even when it seemingly had tendencies to veer out of the tracks by forces impelling to weaken it.

Today, world is more of hybrid in terms of its global ideology leanings- Yes, some are more hegemonic and some more liberal than the others. It is all relative and when it comes to functioning.

Democracies can pursue long-term strategy in part as it enjoys domestic political stability and is unlikely to see the drastic shifts in strategy that come from the fall of one political system and the rise of another. Democracy may be messy, but they’re not as much as coups or civil wars or cold murders.

 

Autocratic systems hardly are able to match any array of social developments and evolution with measurable track records except through a sustained propaganda that is hardly trusted by any.

 

These competing and complimenting tendencies are visible between democracy & autocracy.

 

China, an autocratic state today, has often envisioned in terms of decades. Commonly cited examples of such visions include OBOR/ BIR, Made in China 2025-an effort to subsidize China’s giant tech companies to become world leaders in 21st-century technologies to be a global superpower by 2049.

 

Many opinion makers believe that China’s state-led capitalism will prove more successful, in terms of economic growth, than the U.S. trust in free markets and open politics. I doubt these predictions. Autocratic leaders are unrestrained and do not have to face a legislature or courts, they have an easier time taking their countries in a radically different directions. Mao’s autocratic China ricocheted from one failed policy to another- the Great Leap Forward, then the Hundred Flowers Campaign, then the Cultural Revolution and several megalomaniac projects and one even lead to great famine. 

 

Mao should be taken as a classic case of grandiose failures & yet today his larger than life size portraits hang all over in China. A day can be also possible that his portrait may have the same fate as of Saddam, Gaddafi , Idi Amin and many others.

 

During Deng Xiaoping time, China pursued a fairly constant strategy of liberalizing its economy by “lying low and biding its time abroad”. But on the contrary, President Xi Jinping has changed China’s constitution to set himself up as dictator for life and eliminated his competitors by framing frivolous charges mostly. He stalled or reversed course on eight of 10 categories of economic reform promised by the Chinese Communist Party itself. World took a note of it & seriously.

 

The confrontational policies of China today are hastening an international coalition to tame it. The U.S. National Security declared China the foremost security threat to the U.S.A. The EU labelled China a systemic rival. A global consensus is emerging against China’s muscular & expansionist policies and time would test its strength and efficacy till it lasts. Arrogance often blindsides autocrats till they meet their nemesis.

 

The plans often cited as evidence of China’s farsighted vision, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Made in China 2025, were announced by Xi only in 2013 and 2015. Both are way too recent to be celebrated as brilliant examples of successful, long-term strategic planning- BRI has a lot more roadblock than is visible to Xi. But autocratic regimes are notoriously brittle. The domestic fragility will upset China’s efforts to all its grand plans & soon world would see the narrative of falsehood, when movements like Hong Kong, Uyghur, other oppressions gets a delta factor and erupts in all provinces, then the push would be hard for autocrats to handle. China is already deploying more of its forces in monitoring & repressing their own people and not defending the country.    

 

The world has undergone drastic changes in the past few years, but these enduring patterns of international affairs have not changed much.

 

Democratic political systems certainly have problems. But democracy is still the best machine ever invented for generating world orders, power, wealth, and sustenance on the international stage.

Lying comes naturally to the authoritarian government, which will create narratives to maintain its tight grip on the reins of power. Just a few examples are enough to buttress this.
 
Officials continue to lie about the number of deaths in Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus. The official death toll is 2,500, but many authentic sources say that as many as 42,000 people could have died in the city. Now, seemingly, mutant strains have surfaced in Beijing and is not admitted.
 
But the dishonesty didn’t start with the coronavirus. The CPC has been lying for 31 years about the Tiananmen Square massacre of several thousand freedom-seeking students in June 1989.
 
The Chinese Communist government lies about its persecution of the Muslim Uighurs in western China. An estimated at least one million Uighurs have been placed in so-called “education centres”. No one knows how many have died in these camps while being “educated” nor do we know how many Uighurs have died of COVID-19 disease. No one knows how Xi regime is indulging in illegal organ trades by selling organs of its prisoners. No one knows how many died in prison due to this, but is an open truth globally.
 
The Chinese Communist government lied that it intended to honour its 1984 agreement with the British regarding the transfer of authority of Hong Kong to China and now they want it as mainland.
 
On every trade deal and export China, for many years, have been giving false declaration to gain trade and price advantage- be it misclassification of tariff number for products, be it its origins, be it on bilateral trade issues, it has lied at every step to gain advantages, it has stolen IP rights and have indulged in all lies that if compiled could be a compendium for global references.
 
Such calculated disinformation was the normal for USSR of 60’s & 70’s, during the peak of cold war era whose carbon copy Xi has clearly copied and rolled. The truth is that the Autocrat leaders regard any reporting of the facts as ultimately a threat to the stability of the regime.
 
In democracies leaders have also indulged in lies, corruptions, inappropriate behaviours etc. often. Telling the truth feels like giving up control. The last thing leaders want to feel is out-of-control or powerless so they indulge in a hyperbole narrative, which often are just plain lies.
In US context, every president in last sixty years have lied about with far more serious consequences. 

• John F. Kennedy covered up his unstable health, denied his many extra-marital affairs Hollywood stars, and lied about a non-existent “missile gap” in the 1960 presidential race. Once elected, he allowed the Pentagon to announce that none existed.
• The Nixon’s denial of White House involvement in the Watergate burglary & he was forced accept his part in the cover-up, which forced him to resign.
• Reagan’s Iran-contra scandal that he did not try to cover up Iran-contra, but directed his attorney general to conduct an immediate and thorough inquiry.
• Bill Clinton narrowly escaped impeachment for lying about his Oval Office affair with Monica Lewinsky.
• President Obama lied health care plan. That lie helped secure the passage of Obamacare and compelled four million Americans to seek another health care plan.
• Lyndon B. Johnson, who repeatedly promised during the 1964 presidential campaign,  about Vietnam war  soldier strength  of hardly 10,000 & at the very same time he send the first wave of more than 100,000 American servicemen to Vietnam that went up to 500,000 and fatalities reaching a total of 58,000 by the time fighting ended in 1973.
• Trump himself is a class in itself. I believe he is the most prolific liar in the history of American democracy. The Washington Post reported that Trump made 3,251 false or misleading claims during his first 497 days in office. That’s an average of nearly 7 “lies” a day. It has continued unabated and shamelessly.

Then a few examples of resignation in other democracies due to lies / inappropriate behaviours/ money scandals in last 50 years that are equally important to gauge the depth of democracies worldwide - 

• Willy Brandt- Chancellor of West Germany after the Guillaume affair that is the most    significant espionage history.
• Kakuei Tanaka- Prime Minister of Japan after allegations of corruption inquiry.
• Yitzhak Rabin- Prime Minister of Israel after allegations of financial improprieties.
• Mikhail Gorbachev- President of the USSR. ( A US spy who broke USSR put by Bush Sr.) Thabo Mbeki resigned as President of South Africa- after illegally interfering in the National Prosecuting Authority.
• Yasuo Fukuda, Prime Minister of Japan since 2007, citing problems with his leadership.
• Naoto Kan, Prime Minister of Japan- due to the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
• Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy, resigned due to economic crisis.

World can see the difference between a lie and hyperbole and accept it to a point & no more.

Around the globe, people are divided in their opinions on China & democracies and its narratives to be worthy of trusting. The irony is that countries that are ranked most corrupt see autocrats as trustworthy and less corrupt nations have low propensity to trust autocrats’ narratives. In contrast, investment from China is only weakly related to views of China across the countries. 

Enduring relationships had to be built on a foundation of truth & trust follows, but sadly, almost all leaders across the world take lies as the easiest narrative to further, yet knowing well that lies are unravelled ultimately and they are caught in that web with no escape.

The character of a nation is also perceived by truth and honesty. A nation’s leader that uses truth as a lever would never need a prop to hang a narrative to justify an honest action. Truth and lies both build perceptions and they endure as a tag and moniker for a nation.

North Korea- what is our perception? Sweden – what is our perception? Answers are clear to each one of us. That is what a character of leadership is all about.

 

Global leadership needs honesty in dealing, transparency and convictions to live by a truth. Can an Indians or Japanese ever trust a Chinese when they come to discuss trade & do incursion at borders in eye ball to eye ball conflict at borders? I would risk saying a big NO.

 

Trustworthy is a conjunction word- Trust & Worthy, they together mean a lot. Lack of trust & deficit of it is meaningless in global relations & are not worth it.

 

World leaders in democracies must lead with truth, it can be inconvenient for a while and may help one lose an initiative seemingly, but the world has an uncanny ability to know the truth and the lie. Lies don’t have legs and can’t go further & truth will never need a prop. 

 

Leaders must take note that Democracies are not for the gullible, nor is autocracy for the submissive.  

 

 

25 June 20