Collapse of communist rule seen in China

Collapse of communist rule seen in China
By Tim Shorrock

WASHINGTON - Ian Buruma, a former fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Institute for the Humanities in Washington, and whose writings on Japanese politics and culture and the European fascination with Asia have captivated readers around the world, has now taken on the vast and complicated subject of China and what he sees as the impending collapse of a half-century of communist rule.

In his new book, Bad Elements: Among the Rebels, Dissidents and Democrats of Greater China, the London-based Buruma describes the world of the Chinese dissident and political prisoner, from the perspective of political activists based in mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore as well as the United States. Based on interviews conducted over five years, he argues that the Chinese regime in Beijing will inevitably fall because of corruption and the erosion of communism as its ruling ideology.

"Strange things happen from Chinese dynasties near their end," Buruma writes in the opening paragraph of his book. "Dams break, earthquakes hit, clouds appear in the shape of weird beasts, rain falls in odd colors and insects infect the countryside."

It is an ominous picture indeed.

Ominous, but justified, Buruma said. "Nobody believes in the dogma any more," he told a Washington forum organized by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. "Communism is simply not enough to give the government any legitimacy."

Without an ideological glue to bind its rule to the people, Buruma said the Chinese government has resorted to traditional calls to preserve order and national interests and blatant appeals to materialism - namely, that its market-oriented economic policies can help "everyone get richer".

But that approach could, in the long run, present serious problems, because the free flow of goods and open capital markets often produce economic crises, such as the one that gripped most of East Asia just a few short years ago.

"A government without legitimacy is not well placed to cope with a crisis," he said. "Things could get very ugly indeed." The likelihood of unrest is strongest in rural China and among the urban unemployed, said Buruma, who has spent many years in Asia and studied in Japan.

In analyzing the ruling circles in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, Buruma sees striking parallels in the intersection between politics and culture. Throughout greater China, he says, there is an assumption by the ruling parties that their special brand of politics - whether Marxist-Leninist in Beijing or free-market authoritarianism in Singapore - means that government is the guardian of Chinese institutions and tradition.

"The idea that strong authoritarian government is a barrier against chaos" runs strong in both China and Singapore, he said. And in Taiwan, the Kuomintang, the longtime ruling party made up of Chinese exiles who fled the mainland in 1949, "saw themselves as the true guardians of the Chinese traditions smashed by Mao [Zedong]".

"It's a kind of cosmic idea of politics that goes back centuries," Buruma said. Traditional Chinese rulers view themselves as "people who mediate between heaven and Earth" and protect Chinese ethics, culture and politics from outside forces. That makes it easy for them to criticize "dissidents as anti-Chinese".

Such thinking has profound implications for dissidents. "To be a rebel means not just being a political rebel but [being] a savior of Chinese civilization," he added.

In the long run, Buruma said, "the only guarantee of stability in China" is a "democratic, representative system".

Minxin Pei, a political scientist and a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the "real challenge" for Chinese dissidents is to "find practical ways to institutionalize democratic traditions". Pei argued that while democratic pluralism is the preferred route to stability, there are dangers ahead as China approaches the transition from authoritarian to democratic rule. "The transition itself is fraught with upheaval," he said. "The current regime is poorly equipped to deal with a democratic transition. It hasn't really faced up to its misdeeds and atrocities over the past 50 years." As a result, Chinese-style glasnost "is likely to unleash a flood of recrimination and anger" that would be "destabilizing rather than enhancing stability", said Pei.

Part of the problem, he suggested, is that the Communist Party is in complete control of the Chinese state. "If the party were to collapse, there is a failed state, or there is no state."

Pei cast doubt on whether overseas Chinese dissidents have the political capability to become a force in a post-communist China. Because dissidents are uprooted from their mother country, he said, their "voices are muted" and their ability to sustain themselves as a political force are limited. At the same time, within the United States dissidents are divided into factions that rarely compromise, further limiting their political effectiveness.

"When a regime changes, they'd have to compete with other groups for power," he said of the overseas groups. When that happened in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, he noted, the "Soviet exiles returned but quickly disappeared".

Dimon Liu, a US-based author who is one of those overseas dissidents, argued that a rapid transition to democracy is possible in China. "Anyone who argues for a slow transition is not a true democrat," she said. "If you're going to make a transition, make it quickly."

When all else fails, lets try the ol' nationalism rally...

BINGO! Though I think this was the plan that they have been using from the beginning. Chinese priorites are to get the economy running well in the WTO and some sort of 'controlled' political reform. The popularity of the Falung Gong reflects the disparity between economic and (non) political reform. The only reason that they have 'influence' is because they are the only 'group' floating in the vacuum of political reform.

The 4th generation of leaders will soon step into the breech. It will be interesting to see if they succeed and in my opinion they will. As far as I can see, I believe that the average 'Chinese' understand that economic prosperity is a fundamentalvery interest as huge political uphevals will threaten this and their existence down to the roots. The alternate is the India model - grinding poverty in a democracy.

I could, of course, be horribly wrong ;)

VRN

"It's a kind of cosmic idea of politics that goes back centuries," Buruma said. Traditional Chinese rulers view themselves as 'people who mediate between heaven and Earth' and protect Chinese ethics, culture and politics from outside forces. That makes it easy for them to criticize 'dissidents as anti-Chinese.'"

I strongly believe this "change of heart" is all a ruse, concocted in the bowels of a society that puts a premium on the merger between Sun Tzu, Confucious, Tao Te Ching, and Communism.

Most valued in this type of culture is deceit of those who are not of your tribe. This is not an open society, either before it was Communist, or afterwards. The only way to deal with China, sadly, is to doubt and disbelieve everything they say, while always asking how they would benefit from your actions, and how you would lose.

Furthermore, take a look at this description of the Tao Te Ching: "Written between the 6th and 3rd cent. BC, it was once called the Laozi after its traditional author Laozi, though its true authorship is still unresolved. The Tao-te ching presents a way of life intended to restore harmony and tranquillity to a kingdom racked by disorder. It promotes a course of nonaction, understood as restraint from any unnatural action rather than complete passivity, thereby allowing the tao to resolve things naturally. It was designed as a handbook for rulers, who should rule by inaction, imposing no restrictions or prohibitions on their subjects. The Tao-te ching has had a tremendous influence on all later schools of Chinese philosophy and religion and has been the subject of hundreds of commentaries.

Their whole structure stresses the complete absence of change, and the refusal to alter any of its infrastructure for anybody. Hence my opinion that this is all a lie, designed to get more foreign investment, which they will ultimately, and inevitably, engulf.

Thank you for posting this.
In a previous thread, I said "communism in China is in its last quivers of death", but some ridiculed me for making that statement.

Personal observation of the Chinese is evident of the impending fate of the CCP, as it is known now. The Chinese are working on a slow developing, more democratic form of government which may take another ten years to realize - but it is coming. The more the Chinese are introduced to a free-market enterprise system, the quicker the change will affect the average citizen there and the sooner the governing body (whatever the people there decide to adopt, post CCP) will more closely represent the Chinese citizen...
Az

FYI The Chinese males are already seemingly taking action against this problem by kidnapping females from Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam.
This kidnap problem is growing exponentially yearly, according to some reports.
The Chinese are also beginning to restructure their family planning policies, evidenced according to revisions of their laws and enforcement policies in recent years...
Az

"Equipment and technology from telecommunications firm Nortel is being used by the Chinese Government to monitor its citizens, according to report by a Canadian human rights group. The report - China's Golden Shield , published by Montreal-based Rights & Democracy - acknowledged that most of the world's largest technology companies actively market their wares to the central government and its public security bureaus.

Profit over principle. These high-tech thugs do the same in the West. Hey, as long as their quarterlies show a decent growth, who cares if they earn it by narking on their fellow citizens?

>>In fact, from what I've seen the CCP state apparatus itself is going stronger than ever, and has gained a new lease on life as the guarantor of foreign investment and the provider of a pool of slave labor.

Right. I don't think the international capitalists like to see the CCP collapse and ruin their investments. They need the CCP to safeguard their interets.

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