And THAT is only one stepping stone on their path to full communism -- the abolition and control of all domestic travel and a permanent ban on all private automobiles for the hoi polloi.
I worked in China for seven months late 1976 to late spring 1977 and saw what a society without any private automobiles looked like. It wasn't pretty. I worked in a fertilizer plant located at the confluence of two major rivers and three provinces. You could not leave the Yunnan province to go to either of the other two without an internal passport.
“I worked in China for seven months late 1976 to late spring 1977 and saw what a society without any private automobiles looked like. It wasn’t pretty. I worked in a fertilizer plant located at the confluence of two major rivers and three provinces. You could not leave the Yunnan province to go to either of the other two without an internal passport.”
Several years ago, my sister and her family hosted a teen-aged exchange student from China. The student was amazed that they could go to a movie without letting the “leader” in their neighborhood know their destination and get permission. She was flabbergasted at the amount and variety of food you could buy at the grocery store. And she was shocked that my niece and nephew didn’t have school homework to do on over the weekend. It took several weeks before she wasn’t “spooked” when going out shopping as she expected someone from the “authorities” to approach her and ask what she was doing and why. She cried when she had to return to China. My sister kept up with her for several years by letters but I think they have now lost touch.