The only thing that really matters is control of the army. No revolution or major change can take place in China while the army is totally under the control of the party.
The only thing that really matters is control of the army. No revolution or major change can take place in China while the army is totally under the control of the party.
Probably, but I doubt the army can do it alone. It’s easy to intimidate unarmed people if you have guns. But who do you intimidate? For that, you need informers. Playing whack-a-mole only works for the moles that appear. Most won’t, but in their hearts, they’re not playing on Team CCP. How to find them? In revolutionary Russia and France, everyone spied on everyone. If the dynamic of the Chinese version works the same way, the ratio of rebels to rats will run close to 50/50.
That’s plainly unstable: either the rebels will win and there will be a real cultural revolution, or the repression will escalate and blood will run in the streets. I’m not betting on either side in this one. Too close to call.
At some point many in the army will refuse to attack and kill their fellow citizens. It may take longer in China since the respect for life is so much less than in the West, but it can happen.
It's said that in 1989 local Beijing based units were first deployed and refused orders to fire on the crowds, but they brought in units from a distant province in the West and told them the protestors were terrorists and anti-China and...you know the rest.
The only thing that really matters is control of the army. No revolution or major change can take place in China while the army is totally under the control of the party.
Probably, but I doubt the army can do it alone. It’s easy to intimidate unarmed people if you have guns. But who do you intimidate? For that, you need informers. Playing whack-a-mole only works for the moles that appear. Most won’t, but in their hearts, they’re not playing on Team CCP. How to find them? In revolutionary Russia and France, everyone spied on everyone. If the dynamic of the Chinese version works the same way, the ratio of rebels to rats will run close to 50/50.
That’s plainly unstable: either the rebels will win and there will be a real cultural revolution, or the repression will escalate and blood will run in the streets. I’m not betting on either side in this one. Too close to call.
At some point many in the army will refuse to attack and kill their fellow citizens. It may take longer in China since the respect for life is so much less than in the West, but it can happen.
It's said that in 1989 local Beijing based units were first deployed and refused orders to fire on the crowds, but they brought in units from a distant province in the West and told them the protestors were terrorists and anti-China and...you know the rest.