Brace yourselves for the next civil war in China!
Western influence was indirectly responsible for the first Tiananmen Square incident. At the time, China's government rejected the outside world while Chinese academia embraced new ideas of democracy and capitalism.
Over the past 16 years, the Chinese government has become more hands off and has allowed a semi-capitalistic (yet still very controlled) approach rule mainland China, more so in the model "posterboyesque" cities of Beijing & Shanghai.
I believe that there will be another Tiananmen incident, or should I say revolution, and when this occurs the tables will be reversed. Poor Chinese peasants/farmers/laborers from outside the city-centers (comprising the majority of the country's population) will be sick and tired of the oppressive, exploitative Chinese ruling class. They will attempt to rise against and rebel the contradictory Chinese government. Whereas in the past China's communistic approach aimed at helping other countries overthrow democratic world leaders, its own new-founded "democratic/communistic" ruling party will ironically have to fight to maintain their stronghold on the nation.
What will be interesting is to see is if other nations attempt to intervene. If the war in Iraq was a sign of the UN's cohesiveness, strength, and political clout, this upcoming clash of power will need be completely resolved within the confines of the "Great Wall."
1 comment:
Milton,
As much as your commentary is accurate in the sense that it illumminates some of the issues many Americans perceive in reagard to China, we also need to focus on what us 'Westerners' (wai guo ren)are doing.
In a quite hypocritical manner, western leaders (such as Rumsfeld) are throwing all kids of criticism at Beijing, for its need to reform, democratize, etc. These are not wrong remarks, but rather strong and provoking. On the other hand, the US economy (and its HUGE debt deficit) is depending on Chinese financing, as (I believe) 25% of all US treasury bills are in the hands of our Chinese friends.
How can we both rely on China's economic miracle (which arguably helped us from a greater post-.com bubble crash/stagnation) and at the same time take distance from their political behavior?
How do we prevent ourselves for all being hypocrites? Did the US not have a democratic and liberal reform deficit all the way up to the 1960s?
Those are some of my thoughts.
-Cookiesap
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