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I remember reading a book in 1987 that claimed that the Castro Regime was heading for imminent collapse. Over 3 decades later, I am still waiting.

However, this story quotes a sinologist who claims secondary access to the thinking of a CCP Politburo member. I also think that anyone who wants to ban portrayals of Winnie the Pooh because they are subversive is not confident about their hold on power.

[I remember reading a book in 1987 that claimed that the Castro Regime was heading for imminent collapse. Over 3 decades later, I am still waiting.]

I think there’s a tendency among Chinese historians to downplay the fluidity of Chinese regimes. The first peasant emperor of France was Napoleon, who ascended the throne around 200 years ago. The first peasant emperor of China gained his position 2200 years ago. He founded the Han dynasty. It lasted 400 years. Dynasties founded by peasants have ruled China for about 1/3 of its 2200 years. And that’s just the big changes in regimes, marked out by bright red lines. The more Chinese history I read, the more I’m impressed at how rambunctious the Chinese population is, even as Chinese historians repeat their mantra that the population is docile, even in the face of numerous recorded elite mutinies and popular uprisings.

“I remember reading a book in 1987 that claimed that the Castro Regime was heading for imminent collapse. Over 3 decades later, I am still waiting.”

The difference is, how could you even tell if Cuba has disintegrated? The people there have been reduced to such a low level of existence it would hardly make a ripple in the world if it disappeared entirely. China, OTOH...

Under Communist Party rule, mainland China is, at best, an opaque society. We do not know, nor can we know if the regime’s control is solid, or is it a solid looking, but brittle shell.

At the beginning of 1989, the USSR looked to us to be a solid superpower, with some problems, but the Communist government was able to manage them.

In retrospect, the USSR was riven with ethnic, regional, political, and economic cleavages. Party leaders in the hinterlands chaffed at central control, ethnic hatreds and old resentments simmered. The Party was losing its ability to retain control, but no one, inside or outside the Party realized just how bad the situation was getting.

Castro in Cuba, had fewer problems and enough distance and isolation to head off the revolutions that toppled the eastern European Communists.

In China, to me, General Secretary Xi’s personality cult building and the Party’s focus on nationalism and external expansion could well be designed to distract people from internal problems the Party is struggling to deal with. But we can only speculate, as hard accurate information is difficult to find.