Anti-government demonstrations in China
You’ve almost certainly read about the protests in China. On the one hand, it’s encouraging that people so tightly controlled want to be more free and are willing to go public with it in significant numbers. On the other hand, the fact that they are so tightly controlled – and modern technology makes it more and more possible for any high-tech centralized government to do something of the sort – makes it hard to think that the protesters will somehow be successful.
When regimes topple, it’s often because of one of these things: (1) those at the top become unwilling to use violence and coercion to maintain control; or (2) those at the next-down level – police or military, for example – stop doing their bidding.
Are there any signs of either thing happening in China? I don’t really see it. For example:
Rallies against China’s unusually strict anti-virus measures spread to several cities over the weekend, and authorities eased some regulations, apparently to try to quell that public anger. But the government showed no sign of backing down on its larger coronavirus strategy, and analysts expect authorities to quickly silence the dissent.
With police out in force Monday, there was no word of protests in Beijing or Shanghai. But about 50 students sang at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and some lit candles in a show of support for those in mainland cities who demonstrated against restrictions that have confined millions to their homes. Hiding their faces to avoid official retaliation, the students chanted, “No PCR tests but freedom!” and “Oppose dictatorship, don’t be slaves!”
Many governments have learned how to calibrate their responses so that things are kept at a simmer, cracking down where needed and relenting a little bit when needed just to allow a bit of pressure to release. And then they go on as before.
Do I sound cynical? I suppose so. But until a significant portion of the police and/or military decide not to enforce the government’s will, or many more people go on a general strike, I just don’t see things changing.
Cynical? No. Realistic? Yes. The regime cannot let its grip on power slip. If not before, then they certainly drew lessons from the fall of the USSR. I wonder if you have any evidence of cracks in the resolve of the police and military. I cannot imagine any deviation from the regime’s directives would be tolerated. I suspect that human nature can tolerate such conditions for only a period of time and not indefinitely. I wonder how the regime sees the future, and what its plans are for maintaining power.
China has essentially had 3000+ years of top-down centralized power.
Consequently the Chinese people seem to have an extremely high tolerance for government malfeasance and the brutal mistreatment of civilians by those in power. For whatever reason it doesn’t matter if absolute power is vested an emperor, a warlord, or a nasty authoritarian communist oligarchy, the regular lumpenprole rarely seem to push back too much. So I don’t expect much will come of this, but I’d love to be proven worng.
Can do! (Tyrany) Even a 3000 year old culture with a less diverse population can be much less than optimal for the individial? Xi knows best. (sarc)
Neo, FWIW, here is an article just posted at Quillette about the growing number of Chinese students on Western campuses joining protest groups: “Now the chats are being used to organise anti-Xi protests in cities around the world. These protesters are emblematic of the emerging Bridge Man Generation: people were already angry, but it took his sacrifice to galvanise them. And so, in New York on Hallowe’en, students slipped into Big White bodysuits—a mockery of the COVID security teams back home and a precaution against identification—and marched through the streets calling for an end to Xi Jinping’s rule.”
The author goes on to point out that these student dissidents on Western campuses are a minority who are very cautious in what they say to other Chinese students (some of whom are spies), but he concludes, “For now, China’s dissenters are still isolated. But not as isolated as they once were.”
The article also recounts several incidents that occurred in China that reflect a peculiar sort of moral decay in Chinese society– particularly the reluctance of ordinary people to help or rescue someone in trouble due to “the anti-human philosophy of collectivism” imposed by government authorities.
Here is the link: https://quillette.com/2022/11/27/the-loneliness-of-the-bridge-man-generation/
I’m not sure what to make of the author’s reports and analysis, but perhaps you have some thoughts.
Internationally, Chyna has become a litmus test for totalitarian sympathies.
Jonathan Turley:
“A Very Attractive Model”: China Cracks Down on Reporters and Protesters Days After Praise from the WEF Founder
I’ve been trolling video coverage on YT.
WION seems to be the best channel, to me, so far.
Big White supremacy indeed.
It may be the local governments that cause Peking the problems that break its back. They’re tasked with paying for all of the testing and what-not that goes into the zero-covid measures. That’s a huge expense for them to absorb. That’s made worse by the collapse of the property market because a lot of their resources came from selling land to developers. So, their income is down, and their expenses are up — an untenable spot for them. Watch the push-pull between the local governments and Peking.
Xi’s reputation is tied to zero-covid, and it is hard to see how he can back down from it without a huge loss of face and reputation. In China’s tightly controlled information space the populace was sold the notion that everywhere else was greatly suffering from the disease, while China was much, much safer because of the zero-covid policies.
So, another spark to the current Chinese unrest was, of all things, the World Cup. The Chinese viewers of the games couldn’t help but notice that the audiences at it were unmasked and not practicing social distancing at all — and they seemed happier and better off than the Chinese under lockdown. The reaction was so bad that the Chinese media started blurring the audiences to hide that fact, but the cat was out of the bag.
I wonder if students on American campuses can even fathom what’s going on there…
Maybe the ONLY way to describe it is in terms of “a whole lotta microaggressions”….
Mega-microaggressions?
Yeah, mega-microagressions ought to be something they can understand….
“Twitter Bans Multiple Antifa Accounts After Threats And Attempts To Burn Down Tesla Dealerships”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/twitter-bans-multiple-antifa-accounts-after-threats-and-attempts-burn-down-tesla
Opening graf:
“Elon Musk’s Twitter has suspended several accounts belonging to extreme leftist Antifa groups following years of incitement to violence culminating in threats to commit arson against Tesla facilities….”
China’s former “one child” policy has proven to have been a disastrous one.
Lots of YouTube videos about irreversible demographic decline coming to China in the next couple of decades, leading to a predicted halving of the Chinese population.
If true, I’d imagine that Xi or any other Chinese leader might take any number of risks facing such a bleak future, and while he still has the manpower available.
China has essentially had 3000+ years of top-down centralized power.
The Chou dynasty was ‘top down centralized power’? The Warlord period?
Yahoo Finance was reporting that the wonderful Apple corporation has been cooperating with the CCP in making harder for communication with cell phones for the protestors.
I’d love to see the CCP fall, but sadly, I’m not expecting it.
Tyrants sometimes use military action against the source of a perceived injustice to unify the country behind them, the way Argentina used the Falklands. The fact that the Falkland’s source of support was far away made it a tempting option.
Now let’s see, who might Xi conveniently use? Another nearby island with a far away ally would be…?
I’d love to see the CCP fall, but sadly, I’m not expecting it. –Kate
That’s prudent. We’re not in the final ten-second countdown to the end of the CCP. But bubbles burst and I say the CCP is a bubble.
To be sure, the CCP is plenty ruthless and totalitarian. Nonetheless, if the Chinese economy collapses, accompanied by famine and deaths, that’s the end of the CCP.
Perhaps I’ve been watching too many Peter Zeihan videos, but that’s how it looks to me. Between Zero Covid, the Chinese mortgage crisis, the high youth unemployment, the Ukraine War sanctions, Chinese lag in tech, the US backing out of being the Global Policeman, and demographic collapse, I don’t see the CCP getting out of this decade alive.
One reads about all the Chinese dynasties in history. Great stuff. But the flip-side — like all the previous French Republics — is those dynasties collapsed.
Why not the CCP?
The USSR is gone.
Why not the CCP?
We’re about in the same boat.
The Chinese people need guns. The US should be smuggling them in.