China's internal troubles (not the Far West)

[TheCurmudgeon]

Westernization and Modernization- part of the continued process of adding a Walmart and McDonalds in every city. This issue is better articulated by Samuel Huntington and Fareed Zakaria.

With a middle class comes social and political change ala Huntington. The Western power are doing this but not through any coherent plan. As the middle class spreads there are two possible outcomes. First, slow transition to a more liberal form of "democracy" then is currently practiced in China or the "J-Curve" where there is a tightening of authority that goes too far and there is social upheaval (if they will riot over not getting the latest I-Phone just wait to see what they will do if you try to take them away).

The question for the Western Liberal Democracies is how do you foster this change and where do our military fit into that transition.

If China were to become a more democratic state but still very nationalist and very much wanting to demonstrate its renewed place as a major power in Asia what likelihood is there that it will use its military to demonstrate its power (versus using its economic influence as in the case of Africa)?

What is China's military likely to do? Will it feel the need to continue the Maoist revolution and crack down independent of the Party or will it quietly accept the changes?

What will happen in large part will be based on the value system of the middle class. If they remain Confucianist then change will probably come slowly if at all. If they embrace individualism then change may come sooner. I am assuming that if they are rioting for cell phones they are leaning towards individualism. In any case the rural poor will probably remain Confucionist and simply accept whatever the middle class dictate.