Video of the day -- China erupts
This is too important to just leave in the round-up. Starting yesterday, huge protests have erupted all across China, with masses of people defying and even attacking the authorities, and openly calling for Xi Jinping and the regime to step down. Nothing remotely like this has been seen in China since the Tiananmen Square protest in 1989 -- and this new uprising is happening all over the country, not just localized in one place as Tiananmen was. As in Iran, it seems that mass anger and frustration have reached the point where people lose their fear of the regime and its thugs. Watch the video, and you'll see how stunning and unprecedented this rebellion is. Anything could happen.
[Note: YouTube has age-restricted the video, so I replaced it with the embed from Odysee. It's exactly the same video.]
posted by Infidel753 at 2:12 AM
6 Comments:
This is the first I've heard about anything happening in China. I'll have to go look into that now and see what all is going on.
This is fascinating, and I’m grateful you’ve provided a source like this for unfolding events. Washington Post is running a story now that echoes these observations. They cite students in Beijing holding up blank pieces of paper signifying censorship and shouting “Democracy, rule of law, freedom of expression…” Though I guess the death toll will soon mount, these protests and those in Iran are encouraging in view of the authoritarianism taking hold elsewhere.
This isn’t exactly the greatest time ever to be alive, but if its ‘the decade in which dictatorships die’ that would be good enough for me. Not quite going to plan for any of them, is it.
Actually Russia, China, and somewhat Iran were getting along fine for a while -no real threats to stability - but they all eventually succumb to overreach. If they could just keep things on an even plane (with strategic compromises), but tyrants are often deeply insecure human beings (Putin, Hitler, Mussolini, Trump), with that little voice in their head telling them to keep pushing
And just because you’re able to tell everybody what to do doesn’t mean they like it or believe what you’re saying. A benevolent dictator has a chance at survival, but once they figure out you’re only in it for yourself you’re on shaky ground
Mary K: It's a historic event, that's for sure. I don't think anything like this has happened there in my lifetime.
Annie: I've learned to trust these two guys' observations on China -- both of them lived there for more than a decade and they're not shy about telling blunt truths. The situation in China is exactly the kind of thing that tends to provoke rebellion -- a sudden turn back toward repression and tighter control after things had been getting better for a while. But yes, whatever happens, it's going to be bloody. The regime will resort to mass killing to preserve its power, as it did at Tiananmen. Then it's just a question of who's more determined. Bloodshed will make people angrier. Xi Jinping could well end like Ceaușescu.
I don't actually see much in the way of authoritarianism taking hold in many places (Turkey and maybe Hungary, but that's about it). China, Iran, and Russia have been authoritarian for decades. Now those regimes are being challenged like never before.
Reaganite: The longer a dictator is in power, the more he gets used to being surrounded by toadies and yes men who tell him what he wants to hear, and the more he starts to think that's reality. So their tendency toward overconfidence and overreach increases with time. Guys like Qaddhafi and Ceaușescu had no idea, until the very end, how much their subjects actually hated them. Putin obviously believed his own bullshit about Ukraine and how effective the Russian military was. Xi and the CCP thought they could impose unlimited repression and people would just submit. The Iranian theocracy had no clue how sick to death the Iranian masses are of their taboos and bullying. Now the Chinese and Iranian people are seeing their own power, and it will be hard to frighten them back into submission. I hope it will inspire similar resistance in Russia as well.
I think Russia and China are very different from each other. Russia is much more about a cult of personality - Putin and China is more the power of the party. Note how utterly unceremoniously Xi was toppled from within the party. I suspect what will cause massive ructions in China is the rise of India. The CCP has for a very long time believed and promolugated the idea that China becoming global #1 is inevitable. India suplanting them in Asia is a serious problem for this mindset. Of course the idea of a single global #1 is perhaps a bit last century. Perhaps the lack of that specific desire in India is a massive strength. Perhaps the grounding in reality that comes from a growing economy, a very large but stablizing population and increasing influence in science, commerce, the arts... is what a nation needs rather than twisted dreams of false glory. Having said that, I still think Harry Kane can lift the World Cup... That's realistic, maybe. Rebuilding the British Empire is neither realistic nor desirable.
Every authoritarian regime is different in some aspects -- Iran is also different from both of the others -- but they have more important commonalities.
If India does definitively overtake China in modernity and global influence, that will certainly be a serious psychological bow to China. On the other hand, if China eventually manages to establish democracy and maintain a unified state in at least the Han core territory (a rather difficult scenario to envisage at the moment), it could make much more progress. Taiwan and Hong Kong show there's nothing about Chinese culture that's incompatible with modernity and innovation. The authoritarian state is the problem.
Still, China will be handicapped by its very low birth rate and imploding population for a long time. India is much healthier demographically.
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