China's rise and collapse are quite different propositions, but curiously enough they can be approached as two sides of the same coin. This is neither unusual nor unique to our times.
After Mao Zedong (毛澤東) took power in 1949, closing China behind the iron curtain, blood flowed in rivers and the Chinese were put through hell. Nevertheless, he has found an audience and acclaim in the free world.
Belgian author Pierre Ryckmans made a trip through China in 1972, and when he returned he wrote a series of books about his experiences. He assumed the pen name of Simon Leys, as he feared the authorities would not let him back into the country after they were published. The book titles alone, The Chairman's New Clothes, Chinese Shadows and Broken Images, suggest his critical attitude. But despite the truths he revealed, he failed to stem the tide of adherents to Maoist thought in the West.
Even today, we are seeing a repeat of Mao's era under former and current presidents Jiang Zemin (江澤民) and Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) -- with their lies issued by officialdom and truth wrapped up in fabrication. There is, however, a difference, and this lies in the fact that Mao prevented what was happening in China from getting out, and stopped the outside world from influencing what was happening internally.
Nowadays, the communists are walking the capitalist road, using cheap labor as their bargaining chip, their huge market as bait, and practicing a Leninist strategy of allowing the capitalists to sell them the rope with which they will hang them. Under the auspices of "revolution" and "liberation," the systematic hypocrisies being spouted in China today don't hold water as well as they did back in Mao's time.
China's strength derives from her economic miracle, and so most appraisals of her potential rise or collapse are based on economics. However, if we widen our scope a little, the economy may merely be the fuse behind overall collapse, with political, social and cultural implosion as the more important issue.
In Alexis de Tocqueville's The Old Regime and the Revolution, one sees similarities between pre-revolutionary France and China today. Some of the following ideas from this book should suffice to demonstrate this.
First, revolutions don't necessarily break out under worsening situations. As laws are relaxed, the people who are formerly oppressed rise up.
Second, the most dangerous time for despotic governments is periods of political reform.
Third, when the people are suppressed, they can see no way out. All it takes is for someone to stand up and make his or her voice heard, and the people will no longer accept their situation.
Fourth, when certain injustices are removed, people become aware of other injustices that are still prevalent, and this will rile them. Their awareness will become all the more keen the better their conditions are.
Fifth, prosperity stirs up the desire for accumulation of more property and wealth in the minds of the populace.
Sixth, people want to invest and amass wealth, and to run their own businesses. With increased access to the media, they are no longer prepared to accept the hardships they would have borne 30 years ago.
Seventh, 20 years ago people felt no hope for the future: Nowadays they are no longer intimidated by the future.
Finally, on the one hand people are becoming more prosperous and hungrier for wealth, while on the other their efforts are being both encouraged and interfered with. This will lead to self-destruction.
So China's collapse does not appear so groundless. The problem Taiwan faces is how to deal with the aftermath.
Chin Heng-wei is editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US