Ray

Democracy may not come, but chaos will!

China will go the Russian way!

It will break up!

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"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

xunil

How ?
Those protests can make China chaos ?
I don't think so.
Chaos is the last thing every Chinese wants. If the government can convince the poeple chaos is coming. Most of poeple will support a clashdown.

m1tch311

Video game = fun. I like Half - Life, Day of Defeat, and Counter Strike source personally.

btw isn't it my right to PWN!!!!

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My RIGHT as an American to PWN!!

astralis

gunnut, pari,

the main reason why the hippie movement was influential was not because of drugs or that the "west lost control", it was the vietnam war.

knowing that your vote could stop you from getting drafted into an unpopular war was a huge catalyst for political involvement of all sorts.

to be honest, i think americans put too much stock in the influence of the hippies. the hippie movement actually did not change american politics all that much in the 60s. think about it- the 1930s had a Democratic government which passed the New Deal, while the 1960s had a Democratic goevrnment which did the whole War on Poverty thing.

both programs were far more socialistic than ANYTHING the democrats advocate today. in 1964, before the hippies came out in full force in the summer of '69, dems had a crushing hold on the legislative branch (2/3 democratic senators!), the judicial branch, AND the presidency.

in the end the hippies could not end the vietnam war under a democratic president, and the resulting conservative backlash in the 1980s resulted in a new type of republicanism that was fiercer than its 1950s equivalent (compare eisenhower republicans with reagan republicans).

ironically, the hippie movement directly led to a democratic president- bill clinton- whom supported free trade, military interventionism abroad, and a major demolishing of the welfare state. but hey, i guess he personally supported free love so i reckon that even things out.

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Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Everyan

This is the last thing Chinese would want. A split China would be much worse than even a Communist China. We have learned it the hard way, for many times through out the history. Endless war threats, no one would love that.

Most Chinese would place stability hence integrity above democracy. One of KMT's criticise of CCP is the let go of the Outer Mongolia (although the history is still in debate). This is a key to understand Chinese politics.

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天下兴亡，匹夫有责

mweber24

I agree that a civil war is the last thing the Chinese people want, but does that really matter to a political leader that might be able to increase his personal power and wealth, and is NOT answerable to the people other than at the point of a gun? Chinese history is dominated by war with itself, even while at war with others (most recently Japan). It seems like fighting warlords are the normal state of affairs in China's long history. What will the generals do? What will the local officials do (I understand that local leaders have a great deal of power, China a is not monolithically run from Beijing), and how will the new middle class and old peasentry react to such dramatic changes? I believe everything will be fine in China (current protests are relatively minor, and western criticism counts for nothing in China) until the economy stops growing. This MAY not happen for another 20 years, but it will happen. When Japan's bubble burst, it was pacifist. It pretty much just stayed stagnant to this day. What will the completely NON-pacifist nationalistic, autocratic PRC do when faced with economic adversity and an unsympathetic world? I shudder to think.

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The SWO

UnderSpin

During Tiananmen Square protests, the army units stationed near Beijing was sympathetic to students. The government finally had to call in army units from the outside to crush the students. Was it possible for these units to fight with one another? How do LPA generals decide who they want to listen to when there are major conflicts like Tiananmen Square protest? I don’t believe there are simple answers.

The current anger, frustration and protest may build up tension and lead to some confrontation. If confrontation does happen, what will the military generals do? If we can’t be sure about the outcome, perhaps we just don’t want to have the confrontation. That’s why I believe it was a bad idea to appeal to nationalism and rouse popular anger. A civil war is indeed the last thing Chinese want.

UnderSpin

If I understand you correctly ...
USA as a catallyst means USA exports material stuff to other contries and "control the mind" of other countries.

USA got a huge deficit means that USA imports even more material stuff and got their mind "controlled".
On balance, that's about right

hx37

If the Chinese athletes do exceedingly well at the games, the pressure will alleviate. Solid accomplishments can do much to overcome the effects of some protesters. This is assuming of course the Tibetans don't turn crazy and decide to kidnap some athletes or bomb a few stadiums.

Deltacamelately

Fascinating topic: there is a very unreal sense in which China is the "last empire", but the indicators well suggest that sooner or later, China has to disintegrate. The division in China is already very great: the increasing wealth of the urban east and the grinding poverty of the rural population, while this may give rise to large social conflicts, 2000 years of history, marred by internal strifes, wars amongst waelords, varrying culture and present day communism and an iron grip over the common man give coherence to the recipe that makes political disintegration almost unstoppable.
The vast Western provinces: Tibet, Turkmenistan, Sinjiang are very un-Chinese and poor and empty, likewise Inner Mongolia. Tibet, incidentally has been vigourously "re-populated" by Han Chinese making it a perfect pressure cooker to prepare that recipe. To be sure, the Tibetans are very poor and very disillusioned that would surely make them secede.
Although "Communism" as a theoretical/philosophical construct is largely irrelevant now, the strong centarlised government and military are still vital: but the point to make is that change will occur altering borders, as it has been in the past, done repeatedly, with enormous bloodshed, over the last century.

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I am the DARK that Rise to Kill..And Soar to Redeem!

Ray

India is facing the same problem of rural and urban.

However, where China is unique is that there is no process where the population can vent their anger like say, elections at various levels, as India has, where the leaders are chucked out like a soiled rag.

Or do they have some process wherein the leaders can be made accountable to the people?

Oscar

Hans constitute more than 90% of the population and there are dozens of minorities who fit the remaining 10% therefore it is highly improbable there will be any sort of successful ethnic separatism.

And for the social unrests you forget the consensus among the apparatchik and the emerging bourgoisie; basically the formers let the latters enrich themselves by providing them stability and in exchange the ruling class is not challenged by the new chinese bourgois. It can last 20 years, maybe a lot more.

PS: For people who predict a French Revolution. what you always forget is that it was the emerging French bourgoisie, not the poor, who overthrew the throne because the monarchy and overall the aristocracy, didn't want to share power with them. On the contrary in China the CCP is already engaging with them.

Deltacamelately

Yes Sir! They do have some.
However its a bit bloody. You require a train or carrier accident with hundreds dead, CCP refuting allegations of terrorist (read Tibetan) involvement, an instant govt. sacking of officials only to find out at a later time that the concerned official already had some criminal charges over him or his sibblings. Surely leaders can be madeaccountable.

UnderSpin

I agree athletic achievements can make Chinese feel good and alleviate the pressure.
Nevertheless, there still exists many opportunities for conflict. What if Chinese do not like some calls from the referee during a China vs. France soccer match? What if the national TV broadcasts images of westerners’ disrespect, intentionally or not, while China’s national anthem is playing?
The nation psyche of anger, frustration and wounded pride makes their reactions much harder to predict. I hope they will not play the “national pride card” again and get problems out of control.

Ray

I just hope that does not happen.

China has made great strides in the Olympic discipline and I am sure they will do something quite spectacular.