That one brings back some memories, none of them good. That's an easy conclusion to draw when you've defined the truth out of existence and history down to narrative. It masquerades as postmodern philosophy but in fact it's insensate nihilism. And where it leads is:
When "politics takes command," why not lie?
Why not indeed, if there is no truth? IF. If there is, however, and that truth is that there is no food, starvation is not merely a matter of narrative, and it's true in economics as well - if the narrative is that "we're doing better than ever" and in fact you're not, you find quickly that you can neither eat, wear, nor shelter under narrative. The advantage to being in command politically is that when that happens, it happens to somebody else.
My friends on the ground in Hong Kong do not trust their friends on the mainland any longer.
The drift to freedom is not going to be stopped by the wujing this time, as the world is watching and we have a president who would stop all trade with China if they intervene in Hong Kong militarily.
[Chinese President Xi Jinping boasts his nation will return to great power status before 2049. By great power Xi means return to unrivaled world power status, which his ethnic Han-centered reading of history assumes the Middle Kingdom enjoyed during its imperial golden age.]
There is none, except for a renewal of the principle that what the ruler (or emperor, in practical terms) decides, is law. Mao made it up as he went along. His manual wasn’t Das Kapital - it was the Water Margin and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, two of the Four Great (Chinese) Classic Novels, on the the intrigues necessary to fight your way to power and then hold on to it. What Mao instituted was basically imperial rule without hereditary succession, although the non-hereditary part may have been making a virtue out of necessity*.
Over thousands of years of Chinese history, the state ideology was fairly similar to that of every other kingdom since the beginning of time. The idea was that the ruler of China was king of kings, and that his domain would eventually incorporate all under heaven. That domain would be limited only by the power and reach of the imperial armies, and capacity of the imperial treasury to finance their military expeditions. What the emperor sought, most of all, was to cover himself with glory, such that his name would be more prominent than those of his predecessors. This is, again, not very different from what Ramesses II (aka Ozymandias), Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Saladin and numberless rulers wanted for themselves.
Emperors don’t care about race and ethnicity. All subjects under his rule are equal. The most loyal subjects are more equal than the rest, i.e. they are showered with appointments, because their loyalty is the fundamental underpinning of the survival of imperial rule. The Uighurs aren’t being *discriminated* against. They are being converted into “Han”, the definition of which is fairly similar to its Roman equivalent, meaning that from the ruler’s standpoint, regardless of race, ethnicity or religion, their primary allegiances should be to the sovereign and the state, in that order, and their language and customs should be those of the Han, to prevent any internal revolts based on these differences. The idea is that “raw barbarians” should have their traditional language and customs stripped away, in favor of the Han language and customs, to turn them into “cooked barbarians”. There have been many large scale revolts and power struggles within the Chinese state that have resulted in the spilling of oceans of blood, but only a small minority have turned upon sectarian differences.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarian#China
* Mao’s sole surviving non-defective son was abruptly introduced to the effects of napalm for the first and last time by a USAF airstrike during the Korean War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Anying
“Fair guess “core components” means quality core components. China still has difficulties with manufacturing quality control that decades of stealing equipment plans, filching software and reverse engineering technology have not solved.”
That problem is ENDEMIC to their manufacture of weapons. And explains why they cannot field a quality jet engine even after the Russians gave them all the engineering docs AND process docs.
Those who fear the Chinese Dragon fear a chimera.
And it’s why we DO NOT see China’s military seriously challenge any modern nation on any front.
They can’t. And deep down inside they know it.