Posted on 11/28/2022 5:12:16 PM PST by MtnClimber
The huge protests engulfing China right now against lockdowns have left a lot of people wondering if these are just protests. The size, and scope, and vehemence, and fearlessness of the Chinese public against their very oppressive communist masters has made them appear to be a mass movement. In Shanghai, they are calling for the ouster of the entire Communist Party of China. When a billion-strong nation rises up on a cause that has unified them such as this, there's clearly the scent of revolution in the air.
The New York Times did a huge spread on the matter this morning, and it is worth looking at here.
I wrote about its particulars with Twitter videos from Chinese locals yesterday here.
I see tweets like these from financial market types who watch China: [tweets at link]
How do we explain this, how do we judge it, and is this just another round of protests that ends up leaving the status quo, such as we continuously see in places run by other dictatorships beset by protests, such as Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and Cuba?
There's an argument that it isn't.
Lockdowns bring tremendous financial hardship. They turn former middle classes into the poor, dependent on government handouts, if they can get them, which, in China, can be pretty meager, if that.
China, unlike many of those other places, has in the recent past seen a significant surge in economic prosperity brought on by trade with the West, with GDP typically hitting about 9% growth a year. A lot of people moved from the countryside to the cities for this prosperity, seeking jobs in sweatshops, uprooted from their traditional villages and families, but doing better financially than they had in the past.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
But there the citizens are disarmed, but the “People’s Liberation Army” is fully armed.
So could Fang Fang, anyone seen Eric?
“People don’t have ideas. Ideas have people.”
L
My question is, how loyal is the PLA to Xi personally? Xi’s enemies (who are also communist party members) want to return things to the way things were before 2016— no lockdowns, no saber rattling with Taiwan, USA, Japan, etc, no hardcore commie BS. A lot of people inside and out of the party were happy with the prosperity, corruption, and relative freedom.
Nothing that Xi is doing has benefitted either the party, the oligarchs, or the common coolies. He seems to be stuck on stupid.
Bookmark
Besides the True Believer, Hoffer did an interview where he posited the most amazing idea. As a teenager, he experienced poverty and hunger. One time he had not eaten for several days and was very, very hungry. A sudden start, fright, scared him, and the next thing he knew he was no longer hungry. He began to wonder if hunger was an emotion, and could it be controlled?
Hoffer teaches many other lessons. Before the internet, when Hoffer wanted to begin research and learn about something new to him, he would access that section / subject in the library and read the shorter books first. I have used that technique ever since.
There will be no invasion of Taiwan. Xi has seen what has happened to Putin and Russia. Xi knows that if his combat inexperienced army of one child soldiers, his untested ships, planes and munitions failed to surmount 90 miles of open ocean and a determined resistance, taking heavy casualties, the failure would be followed by protests that would be impossible to control. Not only would Xi, his sycophants and family be terminated but the outraged PLA might overthrow the communist party and form a military dictatorship similar to Pinochet’s in Chile or Sukarno’s in Indonesia.
It could be Hu/Jiang factions are able to oust Xi.
It’s all “could” right now.
A lot of things could happen.
The Democrats and the McConnell Republicans i.e. the Party are creating the same “new Poor” situation right here in the USofA. The new poor, as it develops, here though contain a large proportion of people with guns.
It could be the Hu and Jiang factions are allowing the protests to fester. They may go through the motions of arresting people, but not actually try very hard and stopping the protests.
I’m guessing that dragging former president Hu out of that party meeting while the whole world was watching didn’t make Xi any more friends.
Xi is a pretty good analogue of Stalin. Stalin reasserted Party control and the Terror to end a period of relative(!) freedom and rising prosperity. He did not get popular blowback, though, because of the Terror, the random arrest and killing of millions. No individual trusted any other.
Xi seems to be a true believer. That makes him dangerous like Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, etc. His most recent predecessors (Hu, Jian, Deng) were relatively pragmatic. Doesn’s seem to be the case with Xi.
Unlike USSR with Stalin, the Chinese have had several decades of improving conditions. China also has a large middle class with a lot of exposure to the outside world. Xi isn’t going to have as easy a time of things as Stalin or Mao did, lording over dirt poor uneducated peasants.
And for all of the CCP control of the internet, people are finding work arounds. Unlike Stalin’s butcheries, any in China now will not be effectively hidden.
Stalin aborted the rise of a middle class.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.