One of Washington’s leading sinologists is predicting the “crackup” of China.
“The endgame of Chinese Communist [Party] rule has now begun,” George Washington University professor of international affairs and China Policy Program director David Shambaugh said.
In an essay published this weekend in the Wall Street Journal, Shambaugh wrote that Communist rule in China is unlikely to end quietly.
“Its demise is likely to be protracted, messy and violent,” he wrote, adding that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) could be deposed in a power struggle or coup.
“With his aggressive anticorruption campaign — a focus of [last] week’s [Chinese] National People’s Congress — he is overplaying a weak hand and deeply aggravating key party, state, military and commercial constituencies,” he wrote.
Shambaugh has a reputation for caution and his view is surprising.
A US Department of State official refused to comment for the Taipei Times, but said that Shambaugh’s “warning words” were being read with “great interest.”
The academic gives five “telling indications” of what he calls the regime’s vulnerability and the party’s systemic weaknesses.
“First, China’s economic elites have one foot out of the door and are ready to flee en masse if the system begins to crumble,” he wrote. “It is a telling sign of lack of confidence in the regime and the country’s future.”
Second, since taking office in 2012, Xi has greatly intensified political repression, Shambaugh wrote, calling it “a symptom of the party leadership’s deep anxiety and insecurity.”
Third, the academic asserts that many apparent regime loyalists are insincere.
“Propaganda has lost its power and the emperor has no clothes,” Shambaugh wrote in reference to the behavior of Chinese officials at a conference about Xi’s signature “China Dream” concept that he attended in the summer last year.
Shambaugh then asserts that the alleged corruption affecting the party-state and the military also pervades wider Chinese society, saying: “It is stubbornly rooted in a single-party system, patron-client networks, an economy utterly lacking in transparency, a state-controlled media and the absence of the rule of law.”
“China’s economy is stuck in a series of systemic traps from which there is no easy exit,” Shambaugh wrote. “These five increasingly evident cracks in the regime’s control can be fixed only through political reform.”
Shambaugh acknowledges that he cannot predict when Chinese communism will collapse, “but it is hard not to conclude that we are witnessing its final phase.”
“We should watch for the day when the regime’s propaganda agents and its internal security apparatus start becoming lax in enforcing the party’s writ — or when they begin to identify with dissidents,” he wrote. “When human empathy starts to win out over ossified authority, the endgame of Chinese communism will really have begun.”
UPGRADE: The Kang Ding-class frigate is replacing its Chaparall missiles with Tien Chien II and Hua Yang VLS, which would provide it with long-range, 360° air defense Taiwan plans to produce 1,200 to 1,376 Hai Chien II missiles (海劍二, Sea Sword II) — also known as TC-2N — to serve as the standard air defense system of the navy’s surface combatant fleet, a source said yesterday. Last week, the Hai Chien II, the naval version of the Tien Kung II missile (天劍二, Sky Sword II), completed a live-fire test in waters off the National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology’s Jiupeng facility (九鵬) in Pingtung County’s Manjhou Township (滿州). The MIM72 Chaparral and other dated air defense missiles that currently arm Taiwanese ships have inadequate range to combat Chinese
REASONS FOR TRAVEL: An assistant professor said that proposed amendments to penalize drivers if they used drugs overseas would not deter people from traveling People who operate a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana would have their driver’s license revoked, even if they used the substance while overseas, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, citing proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例). The amendments would also authorize the government to revoke the licenses of people determined to have used Category 1 or Category 2 narcotics, even if they were not operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs, as well as ban them from taking the license test for three years, the ministry said. People aged 18 or
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
RSS