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
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