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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 10-Dec-06
China says that increasing numbers of "major mass incidents" threaten government

Web Log - December, 2006

China says that increasing numbers of "major mass incidents" threaten government

Lauding the Chinese Communist Party's "courage to confront realities," the official government commentary says that "The prevention and proper handling of mass incidents is a major test for the [CCP's] governing ability."

This has been an increasing worry for the CCP. In January of this year, China's prime minister warned that the country was becoming increasingly unstable, thanks to a "historic error" caused by corruption in local governments -- where local governments simply confiscate local peasants' lands for their own purposes, without properly compensating the peasants.

However, China's People's National Congress failed to pass a law protecting peasants' rights. The People's National Congress is paralyzed by ideological disputes. This is exactly what happens to a country when it enters a generational crisis era. It's the same kind of ideological paralysis we're seeing in Washington today over the situation in Iraq.

The situation is getting so bad that dissident news sources from China are reporting that membership in the CCP has fallen so sharply since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre that "CCP officials are panicking."

The CCP officials should be panicking. These kinds of mass riots are hardly new to China. The real (and unavoidable) danger is that these regional mass riots will merge into a nationwide rebellion, like the White Lotus Rebellion (1795-1805), the Taiping Rebellion (1852-62), and Mao's Long March and Civil War (1934-49). The last two civil wars killed tens of millions of people, and the next one is expected to continue the pattern.

The new government commentary says, "China is harmonious and stable in general, but it is undergoing profound changes in social and economic structures with many destabilizing factors." What Chinese officials don't understand, but that readers of this web site do understand, is that those "profound changes" are caused by generational changes. The generation of people who fought in the 1940s civil war are quickly disappearing, replaced in the population by young people whose only knowledge of the CCP was the 1989 massacre.

According to the new government commentary,

"China's booming economic development has largely improved people's living standard, but in the meantime the gaps between the rich and poor, urban and rural have been widened.

Against this background, major mass incidents have been increasing and having wider impact. Among these incidents, some economic disputes had been politicized, and violent confrontation has increased so much that any inappropriate dealing would cause bloodshed.

Meanwhile, hostile forces inside and outside China are trying all means to intervene and take advantage of mass incidents to instigate and create turbulence.

The Party should put priority to solving the problems and difficulties of laid-off workers, land-lost farmers, emigrants from the Three Gorges Dam area, migrant workers, and the poor in both urban and rural areas."

Note the remark about "hostile forces" trying to "intervene and take advantage of mass incidents." This is a warning to all dissidents, especially followers of the Falun Gong. This spiritual movement was formed after the Tiananmen Square massacre, and drew millions of adherents. Older people would get together to meditate and do exercises. Beijing became alarmed, and declared in 1999 that practicing the Falun Gong was illegal. Millions of Chinese have been jailed simply for doing the equivalent of Richard Simmons exercises. The reference to "hostile forces" renews that threat.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, China is becoming increasingly unstable and is approaching a massive civil war as its bubble economy unravels, along with the rigid social structure originally set up by Mao Zedong in the 1950s and 60s. Today, there are over 100 million migrant workers (15-20% of the entire workforce), mostly peasants who have lost their farms to corrupt land deals by CCP officials, who take any jobs they can find in the cities and send money back to their families in vast poverty-stricken rural areas. Exactly what event will trigger this civil war cannot be predicted, but it could happen next week, next year or after, but will probably happen sooner rather than later. (10-Dec-06) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 10-Dec-06 China says that increasing numbers of "major mass incidents" threaten government

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 10-Dec-06
China says that increasing numbers of "major mass incidents" threaten government