China's internal troubles (not the Far West)

[MikeF]

The change will come. As other threads have noted even the military is expecting to transition to democracy. Historically these transitions can be messy. Theoretically, a poorly executed transition can lead to regional instability.

The Chinese will change or not change in their own way. Ultimately, they want to be like the West in that they way to pursue their own version of the American Dream (Chinese Dream?).

Another way to look at the issue is to recognize that we have two major problems in understanding China.

1. Sourcing. A lot of U.S. and western understanding about China is viewed from a Taiwanese lens. This lens is skewed toward a particular ideology.

2. Mass. China is huge. What looks like a riot at an Apple store may actually be normal for the way things work in an urban environment.

[Fuchs]

China has a history of regional revolts and warlords.

The Chinese know and understand that the pseudo-communist regime is their best hope for unity in peace, for a powerful China which can resist even foreign great powers.

A move towards nation-wide democracy risks a Soviet Union-like collapse (losing especially Western parts), fractioning and even civil war.
Only the one-party dictatorship with its domestic intelligence service and toughness can claim to have ever kept China at de facto unity and peace for decades.

Different background lead to different behaviour. The expectations about other's behaviours and standards applied can lead to conflicts and misunderstandings. Such conflicts (and foreign policy mistakes) may be avoidable with a sufficient understanding of the other's background.

That's why I'd like to mention three important parts of Chinese history.
I'm no China expert, but I know a lot about history, and some events in Chinese history were just too large - they had a lasting influence on the Chinese culture.

- - - - -

Historical Fact #1 is their never-ending quest for unified central governance.

China had been unified in 221 BC (after the period of the warring states that gave us the teachings of Sun Tzu).
Since then it was in an seemingly endless struggle against decentralization. Many powerful governors of provinces attempted to rule independently, many uprisings led to preliminary independent states and the 20th century civil war of communists vs. nationalists was the last great division of the country.
China isn't really one nation, but it's a group of nations that know prosperity only from times of unity.
The Communist's party reputation rests in great part on its ability to keep the country united (except Taiwan, of course) and to prevent civil war. (Another reason for its power is its ability to prevent famines.)

This historical fact leads to two important insights:
(1) It's near-insane to expect mainland China to accept a secession of Uighurs, Tibetans or other regions, or to give up its claim on Taiwan.
(2) The PR China can be expected to crack down reliably on too independent (corrupt) governors and bureaucracies in order to retain as much central control as the central government wants to have.

- - - - -

Historical fact #2 is the Chinese experience religious fanatics/sects.

The best and most influential example is the Taiping Rebellion. It raged in 1850-1864 and killed much more people than the First World War. The reason was a pseudo-Christian sect.
This war is almost entirely unknown in the Western World - that's not surprising, for Western knowledge of history in 'exotic' places is pretty much limited to universities with historical seminars.

This historical fact should help to explain why it's pointless and very irritating to call for a more moderate treatment of sects like Falun Gong by the Chinese authorities.

- - - - -

Historical fact #3 is the Opium wars and the effect of Western imperialism on China in the 19th century.

The short story is that China was humiliated, partially colonized, pumped full with drugs, subjected to dictates about domestic legislation, exploited and disrespected by foreigners - especially Europeans.

The foreign control of Hong Kong (by the UK) and Macau (by Portuguese) was a well-known reminder of this history till a few years ago.

This historical fact explains why Chinese have a good reason to reject even the slightest attempt of outside interference in domestic affairs. We can attempt it, but it's most likely a stupid idea.

- - - - -

On top of that there's of course a rich culture and history as an ancient civilization.

There was also a bloody war with Japan in 1937-1945 (with several previous clashes) that deserves to be called the beginning of WW2 because it was really a huge war with many victims and only ended with the Japanese surrender.
The Japanese did never really apologise for the war and what Japanese forces did in that war. That and a lingering racism in the triangle of China-Korea-Japan is a serious burden on foreign policy relations in the region.

- - - - -

We should look at China's history and its lasting impact in order to avoid unnecessary conflicts and irritations. The knowledge of history also helps to avoid illusions about China and our influence on it.
Other historical facts than the ones I mentioned lead to additional insights, for example its own (limited) imperial history and its history with Korea and other continental neighbours.

[MikeF]

China city dwellers exceed villagers for first time
Reuters

Chinese Exceptionalism?
Al Jazeera

[Dayuhan]

The Chinese know and understand that the pseudo-communist regime is their best hope for unity in peace, for a powerful China which can resist even foreign great powers.

The Chinese know? What, all 1.3 billion of them?

I suspect you'd find that there's as little consensus in China as anywhere else, and a very considerable degree of discontent with the established order. Paradoxically, this discontent is often most prominent among those who might be called the winners under the established order... though a serious economic disruption and consequent unemployment is likely to get the commoners pretty fired up as well.

[Fuchs]

I am under the impression that my choice of words meant "a strong enough majority of those who care about politics at all".

Accurate choice of words is nice and all, but sometimes there's a superior trade-off to be had if you risk being misunderstood once in a while and in exchange can skip entire book volumes of writing over the course of a few years.
People tend to be annoyed or bored by super-accurate writing styles anyway.

[Ray]

"Consumerism" certainly disintegrates society. The strongest and most integrated societies on the planet are unabashedly consumerist, but they were not subjected to a socialist or a communist system and then introduced to globalisation! They evolved differently.

Unbridled consumerism unleashed by globalisation does affect nations that till now have been subjected to socialist or communist governance where life is dictated and decided from the womb to the tomb. And where daily necessities were shoddy and substandard as per western standards.

Globalisation and consumerism gives the citizenry a ‘freedom’ that they cannot fathom or handle. As it grows on the citizenry, the individual aspirations and desires soar. However, the State is in no position to address the same.

In such a scenario, a section of society by various means, fair or foul, enjoy the new found societal structure acquiring immense wealth, while the majority continues to wallow, and what is worse, is that they do not have the ‘safety’ of the socialist or communist system based on the womb to the tomb policy.

The gap between the haves and have nots increases, the gap between the rural and the urban, the gap between the industrialist and the worker, the gap between the farmer and the owner of the food mart increases and all this causes disharmony.

The real poor, who have no hope in hell to compete, take to arms and there is insurrection, the rationale given for such insurrection can be many, but is basically social injustice, inequality and poverty.

Therefore, the environment is ideal for exploitation, be it by forces within or by any external power that wishes to do so!

Just look around!

Don't confine to China alone!

[Dayuhan]

I am under the impression that my choice of words meant "a strong enough majority of those who care about politics at all".

Ok, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you mean to say something like...

a strong enough majority of those who care about politics at all... know and understand that the pseudo-communist regime is their best hope for unity in peace, for a powerful China which can resist even foreign great powers.

Upon what evidence is that conclusion based?

"Consumerism" certainly disintegrates society. The strongest and most integrated societies on the planet are unabashedly consumerist, but they were not subjected to a socialist or a communist system and then introduced to globalisation! They evolved differently.

Unbridled consumerism unleashed by globalisation does affect nations that till now have been subjected to socialist or communist governance where life is dictated and decided from the womb to the tomb. And where daily necessities were shoddy and substandard as per western standards.

Globalisation and consumerism gives the citizenry a ‘freedom’ that they cannot fathom or handle. As it grows on the citizenry, the individual aspirations and desires soar. However, the State is in no position to address the same.

In such a scenario, a section of society by various means, fair or foul, enjoy the new found societal structure acquiring immense wealth, while the majority continues to wallow, and what is worse, is that they do not have the ‘safety’ of the socialist or communist system based on the womb to the tomb policy.

The gap between the haves and have nots increases, the gap between the rural and the urban, the gap between the industrialist and the worker, the gap between the farmer and the owner of the food mart increases and all this causes disharmony.

The real poor, who have no hope in hell to compete, take to arms and there is insurrection, the rationale given for such insurrection can be many, but is basically social injustice, inequality and poverty.

Therefore, the environment is ideal for exploitation, be it by forces within or by any external power that wishes to do so!

Just look around!

Don't confine to China alone!

Where would you have us look? In which formerly communist states are the "real poor" taking to arms in insurrection?

Even if the transition out of communism and the rise of consumerism creates some degree of disruptive force, what can anyone do about it? Try to preserve a detested system that nobody wants to keep? Tell people they won't be allowed to acquire more goods because that would disintegrate society? I suspect that efforts to forcibly repress emergent consumerism in order to prevent these rather hypothetical disintegrating effects would disintegrate things a lot faster and cause a lot more rebellion than consumerism would.

[Ray]

Selective reading will only confuse issues.

The key sentence is - Don't confine to China alone!

In a totalitarian regime, it is not that easy to organise an insurrection, but there are other countries too where the gap has widened a wee too large to close it and there is insurrection!


Crass Consumerism can be controlled and of that there is no doubt. One cannot replicate the West overnight. Anything done suddenly will have negative repercussions.

[Fuchs]

Upon what evidence is that conclusion based?

It's an official line from China, component of their propaganda (thus widely known there), plausible, reinforced by history, I didn't find a single bit of evidence to the contrary for years since I learned about this aspect of Chinese political culture.

That may not be a positive proof, but I doubt there's a negative one either.