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What we see today may indeed be nothing new: kings and emperors have suppressed countless protests over the millennia of Chinese history.

China is China. The remarkable thing about Mao and the supposedly permanent revolution is how very superficial it turned out to be. But given the tremendous social inertia of a country that old and a population that large, we might perhaps have expected it.

I hope no one misconstrues this as racist because it isn't, it's a cultural observation, but the Chinese are, broadly speaking, intelligent, shrewd, far-thinking, and some of the finest capitalists the world holds. Their prediliction for collective effort predates communism by more than a millennium and will, IMHO, outlive it.

This is not unrelievedly positive - it means, for one thing, that extant individuals are the exception rather than the rule in Chinese society and are often viewed with suspicion. It was they who most caught the attention of the Red Guard during the nightmare years of the Cultural Revolution. (The damage that period of horror did to Chinese historical artifacts makes antiquarians cry and may end up validating the plunder that populated the great museums of Taiwan).

There is another issue, however, that will prove a challenge to Chinese society, and it is the demographics that have resulted from decades of one-child policies that have skewed the population toward the male and guaranteed that it will halve in a generation or two. Were it balanced it might not be a bad thing and it has staved off the certainty of eventual famine, but at a price. That price will be fewer couples and more single men and a far higher percentage of insupportable elderly, a configuration that will challenge everything that we think of as Chinese culture. I'm guessing that will constitute a greater long-term change to China than communism did.

China will attempt to unify itself by defining external enemies of the state. When that time comes, the West must decide how to handle China.

People forget that there is no separation between the military and civilian branches of government in China. We so naturally assume that , being Americans. All of this infrastructure needs only a single command to be converted to a war footing.

So I do not trust anything about China, or its agenda to conquer the Pacific Rim through creeping Hegemony, The Spratly Islands, and the systematic invasion of Japan's Territorial waters by its new submarine capability.Tibet is an example of what happens to a state which is unilaterally defined as a client state. Similarly China is doing the same in Buthan, building roads right across the Buthan /Tibetan Automonous Region border,wherever it suits China. The use of Korea as a destabalizing puppet, the wild card which drives an engine of fear in Asia, is also fairly evident.

China is not a peaceful nation. It is an economically aggressive nation, and an aggressive military power which moves ever so slowly. Creeping conquest by hegemony is easy for liberals to ignore, and so we see ignorance toward a consistent policy to destabilize US society through opium shipments to the west from South East Asia,industrial espionage,political contributions to the Democrat Party ( Al Gore and the Buddhist Temple) and the shipment of arms to America for LA street gangs ( a whole load of fully automatic weapons, AK -47s destined for the US black market was intercepted by the BATF in 1996.**)

China is the West's greatest enemy.And she means to economically conquer the West before militarily subjugating it.Make no mistake about it.

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http://www.ak47world.com/clinton.html

Pictured above in the Whitehouse, in a photo that was obtained from the Chinese news agency Xinhua (that never appeared in the Clinton-loving U.S. media) shown is the 'lying piece of scum', otherwise known as Bill Clinton, sitting in the Whitehouse with Red Chinese Army General Zhang Wannian, who was also the primary Chinese Army Official (nicknamed, "The Butcher of Bejing") who ordered the slaughter of Chinese dissident students at Tiannenmen square, that most of the Clinton-loving news media also 'forgot' to tell you about! In addition, the Clinton-Loving news media has also failed to tell of Clinton's treachery, that would seem to far OVERSHADOW Watergate, or anything Richard Nixon ever did, and how Bill Clinton took a CASH BRIBE on February 6, 1996 (in the Whitehouse) for an import permit for the May 1996 smuggling of $8 million dollars worth of FULLY-AUTOMATIC Chinese AK-47s via the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) ship the 'EMPRESS PHOENIX", that was uncovered by an ATF undercover agent named Gary Hipple, and later code-named "OPERATION DRAGONFIRE", and how close the FBI, ATF, and U.S. Customs investigators came to PUTTING BILL CLINTON IN JAIL!!! ******************************

China is China. The remarkable thing about Mao and the supposedly permanent revolution is how very superficial it turned out to be. But given the tremendous social inertia of a country that old and a population that large, we might perhaps have expected it. I hope no one misconstrues this as racist because it isn't, it's a cultural observation, but the Chinese are, broadly speaking, intelligent, shrewd, far-thinking, and some of the finest capitalists the world holds. Their prediliction for collective effort predates communism by more than a millennium and will, IMHO, outlive it. This is not unrelievedly positive - it means, for one thing, that extant individuals are the exception rather than the rule in Chinese society and are often viewed with suspicion. It was they who most caught the attention of the Red Guard during the nightmare years of the Cultural Revolution.

The Chinese don't really think too much about these things because it doesn't do much to improve their material lives, not because they believe in collective efforts. If collective effort were their thing, Communism should have succeeded beyond Marx's wildest dreams in China. The reality is that under Communism, China goofed off because nobody wanted to work harder than the next guy for the same bowl of rice and (Chinese) pickles. Now that you get paid more the harder you work, the ancient Chinese work ethic, not flair for collective work, is coming out of its shell.

Now that it's acceptable to acquire status symbols that flaunt your superior status in life, compared to your neighbors, ordinary Chinese are starting to work long hours - hours that would have been unthinkable in Communist work units. (One upmanship, not humility, is a traditional Chinese value - the first is the reality as practiced over most of Chinese history, whereas the second is the theory taught in Chinese ethics texts).

Bottom line is that Chinese are fiercely entrepreneurial and competitive (with each other). Communism kept this suppressed for a while. It is this competitive spirit that will bring China out of its economic slumber. At the same time it is also what endangers the Party - there are political contenders who see clearly that the Party is just another in a millennia-long line of power-seekers. The idea "I could do that job - probably better" along with sufficient organizational skills and charisma is how previous contenders to the Dragon Throne have won power in the past. The Chinese are attached to the idea that there should be a unitary Chinese state. Historically, they have not exhibited as strong an attachment to the idea that a particular faction should be in charge.

This is why the Party will need to be vigilant to maintain its power. It is also why it seems to overreact to every provocation. Because a single spark can start a prairie fire.

There is another issue, however, that will prove a challenge to Chinese society, and it is the demographics that have resulted from decades of one-child policies that have skewed the population toward the male and guaranteed that it will halve in a generation or two. Were it balanced it might not be a bad thing and it has staved off the certainty of eventual famine, but at a price. That price will be fewer couples and more single men and a far higher percentage of insupportable elderly, a configuration that will challenge everything that we think of as Chinese culture. I'm guessing that will constitute a greater long-term change to China than communism did.

This isn't that big of a challenge. Monogamy is a Western import. Chinese men used to marry as many wives as they could afford. Another way of putting this is that throughout most of Chinese history, Chinese society has consisted of large numbers of bachelors alongside wealthy men with many wives.

Feeding the elderly isn't really a big problem. China doesn't really have a hunger problem today - the issue is now whether they can afford cars and big ticket consumer products. As to medical care for the elderly, that's also overstated. In China, when the elderly get sick and can't afford better medical care, they die. It's viewed as a fact of life rather than as a national tragedy.