Spinoff from this thread. It occurs to me that in China, a government really could die of embarrassment, indirectly, if it causes them to lose public confidence thoroughly enough. The Chinese have always believed that the government enjoys legitimacy, what used to be called the “Mandate of Heaven,” only so long as it meets certain standards of morality and competence, and that a dynasty/regime that falls below those standards should be replaced. Unless the PRC has somehow managed to entirely substitute Marxist-Maoist dialectical materialism or whatever for that paradigm in the minds of the people, they probably believe something of the kind still. Is there, perhaps, anything that can be done from abroad, that can embarrass the government enough to spark a Chinese Spring? And, in such a way that a revolution could happen without civil war? And, end in such way as to forestall a Chinese Autumn, i.e., a new regime just as heavy and as vulnerable to overthrow in the long run as the previous one? Real democracies/republics are not, because an unsatisfactory leadership can simply be voted out.
Natural disasters used to be a sign the dynasty had lost the Mandate of Heaven (performing the appropriate rituals to prevent them being the Emperor’s responsibility – he had to issue personal public apologies for floods and earthquakes, he must’ve screwed up the rites somehow), but I doubt the Chinese believe that any more.
I don’t think so; if America does something that hurts China, then America not the Chinese government will probably get the blame. In order to have the effect you are talking about, the embarrassing disaster would have to look self caused, or at least caused by the actions of a weak opponent the government should easily defeat; not the act of an especially powerful rival nation.
Now, I have heard the claim before that the Chinese government presently bases much of its present legitimacy on an expanding economy, and that an economic stall or crash could damage or ruin that; but I have my doubts that America could cause such an economic fall without making it blatantly obvious it was at fault. And America would screw itself over economically in the process as well, of course.
The interesting presumption here is that the Chinese people actually would want change.
If their economy continues to tick along relatively well, then I see no uprising even if the leadership were to lose face by doing something silly like invading Tibet.
… oh wait…
It isn’t “ticking along relatively well” at all. In fact, China is facing the worse proportional collapse of any industrial nation that I can see. As it turns out, much of its explosive growth was built on lies, damn lies, statistics, buddy-buddy relationships, and outright government fraud.
I am no apologist for the CCP. I believe it is a dinosaur institution that would rather run China into the ground than give up a tiny bit of power. I believe that change is inevitable, but they aren’t going to make it easy.
But the fact remains- they have overseen the single greatest alleviation of poverty that the world has ever seen. It was in my lifetime that people used “starving kids in China” exactly the same way that we now use “starving kids in Africa.” Now these starving kids are grown up, shopping at Ikea, and having children that will never know hunger. Now, I’m fairly certain they did this because it was a way to hold on to power, not out of any real respect for the well being of the Chinese people. But there it is.
The US, quite simply, sucks at messing with other country’s political systems. We’ve tried, over and over and over again. And pretty much every time we try, it turns out worse for everyone involved- including ourselves. The US is powerful, but not that powerful. Not since WWII have we been able to do successful nation building. It just can’t be done.
And anyway, even if we were capable of doing it- why would we? China is our friend. Sure, we yammer away and engage in some saber rattling now and then. But in business, where it counts, China is our best buddy. We have absolutely no problem with them.
In the end, for there to be real change the Chinese economy would have to crash- and it might. But when that change comes, it will be traumatic. It will probably be worse than what is there now. But whatever happens, the US wouldn’t be a part of it.
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I just think a democratic China could add a whole lot more to the world in every way, economically and culturally.
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It might be (MIGHT), but causing it to collapse would probably not have very good short term effects either in China or the rest of the world.
As for the theme of your OP, I don’t think the US needs do anything. The approval of the masses yearning to have all of the goodies their hard work has been for is on a knifes blade as it is. The Chinese economy is closing in on that wall I predicted for the last several years (to the jeers of some of my fellow 'dopers), and public confidence in even the basics of the ability of their government to provide is shaky and getting worse. Basically, if the Chinese economy tanks then it’s probably going to be enough to tip the scales and cause even more of a revolt than they are currently having. What they have is just not sustainable in the long run, and relies on China always having all of the advantages in external trade, and always having an expanding and dynamic economy to bring it’s people up to higher and higher standards of living, and that’s just not realistic. If they DO have a bump in their economic road (which seems likely from what I’ve been reading for the last 6 months) then their people are going to be even more discontent…and a lot of them already have serious disillusionment problems with the current regime.
None of this is something that the US or The West (or the rest of the world) should look on with glee, however, since ALL our economies are so closely intertwined. If China goes TU, we are in for even more economic troubles here at home…and it might push the Euro-Zone over the edge (just like the EZ going TU might push China off the cliff, and toss us into a really monumental recession/depression). Frankly, I hope they pull out of it and muddle along for a few more years or decades, and that the change comes very gradually, and with as little pain as possible.
There are a lot of reasons thrown around, but one that I find convincing is the rapidly aging population. One of the major consequences of the One Child policy is that the generation immediately prior to the policy is much, much larger than the following generations. That’s been a boon while they’re of working age, but once they retire they’ll suck up a large portion of the state’s resources with a smaller workforce to support them. That’s not fatal in and of itself, of course, (Japan has undertaken a similar challenge without failing) but it’s not a good place to be.
Why the fuck would any sane person want to topple the government of China? Anarchy in the biggest nuclear armed country on the planet is not a good thing.
Look, I bristle at extreme forms of China bashing, but are you completelyoutoftouch?
Our defense policy is being reoriented to counter China’s military, trade relations with China remain a political football, the US criticizes China’s human rights record, and there’s lots of other random issues that make relations difficult from time to time. On the other side of the ledger, Chinese leaders and academics can’t get enough of talking about challenging US “hegemony,” building up its own military with weapons targeted specifically at the US, help support countries that don’t get along with the US, and a bunch of other stuff. These aren’t existential threats to the US or anything, but get real: when countries have friends, they don’t trade diplomatic barbs on a regular basis and they don’t keep updating their war plans against each other. Engaging in trade does not mean countries are “friends.” The US-China relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world right now, principally because it is continually strained, and both sides have incentives to try to avoid making it worse. But calling the two countries “friends” is just naive.
Meh. Look about the same as what they were saying last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. I’m sure China will continue to not care what Hilary Clinton thinks of their prison system.
We have a pretty predictable list of things we like to trot out now and then to make sure everyone understands that we really just don’t approve. China will post the same well-worn “Why is the US such a meanie-face?” editorials, and then everyone will take a collective breath and wait calmly until it’s time to go through the whole song and dance again in a few months. Meanwhile, our business ties are completely unaffected, China happily continues to throw dissidents in jail, and Taiwan remains peacefully undivaded. We have to throw a few bones to feeling righteous and indignent towards each other, but we don’t tend to let that interfere with business.
Same with the military. We are getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan. So, we kind of need to re-orient our military strategy around something. Do you honestly thing a country as enormous as China really cares about claiming barren chunks of rock in the South China sea? Naw. China’s just telling us “Hey, I’m a big kid now. I’d like to be understood as a regional power.” We will predictably react by ratcheting up military in the area, which won’t surprise anyone. But China will get the recognition it wants- The strength of our reaction is a direct testimony to us believing that China is a credible threat with some real power behind it. This won’t get it anywhere with us, but will win it some credibility with smaller regional forces. As a bonus, China gets to hear us yammer for a bit about rocks in the ocean, which aren’t that significant, rather than things like Tibet that China really does care about.
Your dismissal of the considerable evidence of underlying tension in US-China relations and the complete fixation on trade as a measure of friendship sure sounds like those in denial that Germany and France couldn’t possibly go to war in the early 20th centuy because it would cost Big Business too much money.
Basic assumption is flawed. The Chinese government does not really give a fuck what foreign views are. The government plays to the domestic constituency, and while they would prefer good press internationally, that is always in the back seat.
Chinese Nationalism is a blunt instrument and not one a foreign power can drive. Go back 150 years in Chinese history and foreign colonizers tried to carve up the country (remember the Opium wars?).
Short answer, there is no obvious way a foreign government would drive a Chinese Spring.
Here is a way to think about it. Go take a stroll over the the CCP’s English Language mouthpiece, the China Daily. I promise that no matter what day you visit, you will find many, many articles on the US. Don’t take it too personally, they run these things in rotation. But the whole thing is basically “The big mean US did this to China” and “The big mean US said that about China.”
By reading that, you’d swear all the US does is think about China. You would think that China is pretty much the main focus of our country. You’d probably expect to read a US newspaper and see nothing but articles about China. But they are flattering themselves. We run a big country with more than its share of internal problems, and our foreign policy is dealing with everything from Libya to Myanmar. China comes up pretty regularly in US newspapers, but so do a lot of other things. Yeah, we think about China, but not that much.
It’s kind of the same thing for China. Yeah, sure, they think about the US. But it’s one of many topics, and far from the most important one. Much more pressing and relevant are whats going on internally with the economy, and what is going on with their many, often difficult, close neighbors.
Continue the gigantic and fast growth of Christanity in China. Once the hearts of the people change there shall be societal and political change as a natural outgrowth.