China's Coming People Power(coming fall of Chinese communist regime)

Washington Post ^ | 10/11/05 | Arthur Waldron

[TigerLikesRooster]

China's Coming People Power

By Arthur Waldron
Tuesday, October 11, 2005; A17

As the Communist Party's congress begins in Beijing, the media are full of speculation -- not about potential reforms but about power. The question: Who will succeed Hu Jintao as nominal leader of China if he steps down on turning 70 in 2010?

A scholar-official from the Ming or Qing dynasties would understand the situation exactly. Classical historiography calls succession the guoben , or root of the state: the designation of the prince who will succeed as emperor upon his father's death.

The scholar-officials knew that the passing of power from one emperor to another was the most perilous moment for a dynasty. The eventual abdication-at-gunpoint of the Qing in 1912 can be traced to the Empress Dowager's coup d'etat against the reforming Guangxu emperor in 1898, which gravely harmed dynastic legitimacy. (He was then confined in the Beijing palace complex, to die mysteriously in 1908, one day before the Empress Dowager).

Hu has nominally held undivided power in China for barely a year (only since September 2004, when Jiang Zemin gave up his chairmanship of the Central Military Commission, and with that his hopes of ruling from offstage, like the Empress Dowager or Deng Xiaoping). Yet already the issue of succession is on the front pages. So has nothing changed since the Qing? Are the rulers of the People's Republic of China no more than "new emperors" embroiled in palace politics?

The answer is a resounding "no" in spite of the illuminating historical parallels. The reason? The imperial families of old ruled by the Tianming, or "mandate of Heaven," but that concept disappeared, replaced early in the 20th century by the concepts of "the people" as the source of legitimate rule and of "democracy" ......

[nw_arizona_granny]

Bump

[dr_who_2]

All this historical background (the usual "this emperor ruled with an iron fist but was then pushed out...in 1895") is interesting but I don't see what it really has to do with where China is going in the 21st century and the price of tea. "People power"? What's so new about that? The Chinese armed forces are going to determine the future of the country unless other somewhat organized masses of officially Chinese people in various parts of what we call China get their hands on some guns.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #42

There will be multiple factions backed by "guns", vying for power. grass-root uprisings will trigger emergence of such groups, and amplify such conflicts.

That is how Chinese history played out. A dynasty is weakened by wide-spread popular revolts and local warlords emerge. Then warlords harness popular resentment and frustration, enlisting people into their army, fighting against one another in a sustained period of time.

[cynicom]

American politicians on both sides will tell you that China will evolve into a peace loving nation.

[dr_who_2]

Nah, they'll most likely be backed by sword props recycled from shootings of old Zhang Yimou films.

[Thunder90]

Hey, it happened in the USSR....