Gordon Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China, predicts a Chinese crackup. The only question seems to be whether it will occur before its clients, North Korea and Iran, lead us into a destructive war.
As China gets more prosperous, it is becoming less stable. Senior Beijing officials now face the dilemma of all reforming authoritarians: economic success endangers their continued control. As Harvard's Samuel Huntington has noted, sustained modernization is the enemy of one-party systems. Revolutions occur under many conditions, but especially when political institutions do not keep up with the social forces unleashed by economic change. And as history shows us, nothing irritates a rising social class like inflexible political institutions. The most interesting trend about protests in recent years is not that they are becoming more frequent, getting much larger, or growing more violent. The most interesting trend is that we are now seeing middle-class Chinese, the beneficiaries of the last quarter century of progress, taking to the streets.
Beijing's policies seem designed to widen the gap between the people and their government, thereby ensuring greater instability for the foreseeable future. Today there's unimaginable societal change at unheard of speed thanks in large part to government-sponsored economic growth and social engineering. Yet at the same time the Communist Party stands in the way of meaningful political change.
Because senior officials don't allow political change of substance, the authorities must resort to force to stop the spread of unrest. But the use of the coercive power of the state is only a short-term solution-force just makes protests even harder to control next time. The leadership will not, or cannot, come to terms with the causes of unrest.
Ultimately, the one-party system will be replaced by democratic institutions. The transition won't be easy, however. China will probably experience years of uncertainty, instability, and turbulence.
Swell. And the Democtrats will be doing all they can to insure that they are in charge during such a dangerous time. Let us pray.
