Chinese have revolution running through their veins. This trait is similar to the French taking to the streets in protest, or Americans writing letters to the editor or going on talk-shows to express their discontent.
Revolution has been engrained in Chinese culture for centuries. The trouble-making Monkey is portrayed as a hero and depicted in cartoons. Children learn that trouble can create clarity, and it is not mischievous to be a revolutionary, if you strongly believe in something.
Because this revolutionary characteristic in Chinese citizens is encouraged, it is very likely that another uprising similar to the Cultural Revolution could happen again in present day
China.
Most of the ingredients are already present. There is extreme economic inequality.
Combine that with the culture that encourages revolution, the only missing piece is someone in power to champion the cause and spark the conflict.
Mao played that role in the Cultural Revolution, and without his support, the Red Guards who were once squelched by the administrators, would not have been able to rise up and revolt successfully.
It is this last ingredient that holds the key to a successful revolution.
If cooperation at the top is not present, an attempt at a revolution could end up as another
Tiananmen Square tragedy (June Fourth Incident - 1989).
2 comments:
Jeanette, your response to the #2 blog question reminds me of my own - we basically agree the conditions are ripe for revolution. In my7 post, I spoke of stability being maintained by existing infrastructure - mainly political but also economic, etc. The disadvantage of my remarks is that I was pretty vague about what would specifically comprise all of this. Your phrase "cooperation at the top" would certainly be a key component that could go either way (a strong charismatic leader could be either a force for revolution or stability). For stability, another component would be fear, as your comment about Tiananmen Square suggests. People think twice about picking on a bully - the Chinese government and military - a lot bigger and more powerful than themselves (at least for local uprisings). Yet, as in my blog, the whole thing smells unstable to you. The amount of unity and coherence in the inner and upper eschelons of Chinese government does not sound like it has been very good much of the time in the past half century, even when revolution wasn't what they were overtly championing. I have a lot more to learn about that, but this is my early impression. There seems to be evidence that China can be surprisingly resilient. But I don't expect external harmony to hold much longer without some new presently-occluded evidence that it is backed up with some strong glue of internal harmony. Steve
Nice evocation of the Monkey King there; I hadn't thought of that.
My entry was more concerned with whether something as destructive as the Cultural Revolution could occur in China today, something I strongly doubt because of the speed and ubiquity of modern communications.
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