Can sanction drive democratic change in China?

Sanction is not a new method to teach a lesson to someone who is going out of way. Parents sanction their kids, village panchayat used to announce sanctions against anyone doing something wrong or immoral. They work in many cases but when they have been used in broader perspective in global politics then the effectiveness of sanction is doubtful. Current phenomenon of economic sanction has started after the world war 2 and formation of United Nations. But time and again, even the smaller countries (e.g. Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Cuba etc) have not vowed under the economic sanctions.

In case of smaller countries, they get some sympathiser country (ies) who support them and the impact of sanction is minimised. But in case of China, impact will be on the country that will try to cut economic/trade relationship with China. Most of the major countries, who fancy the use of sanctions, are also large consumer of products produced in China. Though human right violation might be rampant in the country but a large number of customer need cheap goods, essential or non-essential. In the last two decades, production has sifted to China from the consumer countries and the current income level in the developed countries is not good enough to support purchasing power if goods are produced with ethical practices.

It is not always about the cheap products but even the branded companies (e.g. Apple, Sony, GM, Walmart, Marks and Spencer or Debenham etc) have production facilities in China. If the sanctions have to used against Chinese government then the production facilities have to be moved out of China eventually if not immediately. With the environment concern and workers right and pension scheme, none of the developed country will be ready to accept these polluting production plants.

Thought he use of labour without (or little) rights and human right violation can not be accepted but one should not forget that the developed countries of today have used all short of cheap labour (e.g. slaves) when they were industrialising themselves. People have to work hard and long hours if the country need to progress in materialistic world. The problem with China is that most of the people have no option to choose this life, they have to work hard and long hours.

In current market situations, no country or world community would care to isolate themselves from Chinese economy. China is not only major exported of cheap/ low cost goods but also biggest consumer of products of foreign brands. Companies see future growth in Asia (and particularly China). A large number of countries who talk about human right violations in China have some sort of involvement in human right violation around the world. NATO countries and America are violating all human rights in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They did same in Iran. Very few countries took any action against Israel when it attacked Palestine (or Gaza strip). People are not allowed even the drinking water tanks supplied by UN.

Theoretically it is possible to use sanctions against China but pragmatically they are possible and neither they will have big impact on China to change its policies and governance. In the end, they are serving our purpose - supplying cheap goods. So why bother.