Communist China's vulnerabilities bubble to the surface

[Celerity]

America’s chief geopolitical and ideological competitor suffers from inherent weaknesses

https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/communist-chinas-vulnerabilities



Thousands of protestors took to the streets of Shanghai, China’s financial hub and largest city last weekend, chanting for China’s Communist leaders to step down. The immediate spark was growing public discontent with strict lockdowns as part of the communist government’s “zero-Covid” approach. These protests have reportedly spread to other cities, including the country’s capital, Beijing, where students chanted, “Freedom will prevail.”

China has witnessed previous protests over the government’s handling of the pandemic, and government authorities are now cracking down on these protests as they have in the past. Only time will tell if this round of demonstrations unfolds any differently, but the regular outbreak of protests inside of China in recent years shows an inherent vulnerability in a communist system that lacks basic freedoms.

Communist China’s three main vulnerabilities

1. China’s political system fails to respect basic freedoms. There’s nothing new here: Communist rulers in China have run roughshod over the basic rights and freedoms of its own people for decades. But as Freedom House noted in its most recent Freedom in the World report, “China’s authoritarian regime has become increasingly repressive in recent years.” These stepped-up efforts to crack down on dissent reveal the sense of insecurity that China’s communist leaders feel from their own people. A ruling system that targets a 90-year-old Roman Catholic cardinal and puts its own people in forced labor camps is not one that is confident in its own legitimacy.

2. China’s rigid economic system stifles innovation and potential for growth. The “zero-Covid” approach is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to China’s current economic model. The country faces major debt challenges in its real estate market, and the government recently stepped in with measures in an attempt to address the strains in that market. But beyond this immediate crisis in the real estate market, China has larger, structural challenges with its economic model, including an aging population and growing restrictions on private enterprise. America’s private sector has continued to shift away from China, leading to an erosion of financial and economic ties between the world’s top two economies. Beijing’s growing international isolation caused by its own unforced errors has motivated some of the talent it needs to look elsewhere for opportunities.

3. China’s global engagement strategy has failed to win friends and overtake competitors.......

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[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. "not one that is confident in its own legitimacy" -- an insight that applies to ruZZia & Iran. . nt

[Dorian Gray]

2. I lived in Hong Kong when it returned to China

in 1997. One of my favorite bars there was a place called Club 64. (Named for June 4th, the anniversary of Tianneman.) I've always had a healthy skepticism of the mainland government of China (which has grown way more hardline since '97) and had a love for the democracy movement in HK and the seeds that they plant throughout China.

So seeing some of these protests in response to the draconian actions of the Chinese government (many of which are bc of their Covid restrictions when they didn't even attempt to mass vaccinate the elderly and vulnerable population)... it feels like the birds are finally coming home to roost. You can't keep people in a state of severe restriction for almost three years and expect them not to push back. And the push back is beautiful.

The benefit of it loosening Xi's grip on China/the communist party... would be great. This is good for Taiwan's sovereignty, too. (So is Ukraine kicking ass against Russia, TBH.)

ETA: The democracy movement in China has many strange bedfellows, and some of them are really tight with MAGA. (See Falun Gong... and their complicated history.) But it's also really a brave and necessary movement that we should support wholeheartedly. BC what Xi does with the power he wields actually harms people.

Locking people into an apartment block bc of covid two and a half years in... and then it going up in flames and killing 44 people is NOT SOMETHING benevolent leaders do.