angeldemon_007
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Napoleon Bonaparte, the French emperor is supposed to have said: When China awakes, the world will tremble. Today as the Arab world awakes, China is trembling. Indeed, Beijing is nervous, very nervous. It is quite apparent when one reads the Chinese press.
At the end of January, an article entitled Major Social Unrest Every Five Days in 2010 appeared, quoting a report on social unrest in China published by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The Annual Report on Chinas Crisis Management affirmed that every five days in 2010, there was a major incident of social unrest in the Middle Kingdom a 20 per cent increase from 2009. While 60 major incidents were reported in 2009, it climbed to 72 in 2010. Social unrest had spread throughout 29 provinces and cities (over 90 per cent), with most occurring in Henan, Beijing, and Guangdong. About 43 per cent of the incidents could not be resolved by the local governments and required intervention from upper levels of government to restore order. Interestingly, 67 per cent of the incidents were made public thanks to Internet, mainly through private blogs.
The flower revolutions began in Tunisia, rapidly spreading to Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world, giving an example to resentful Chinese masses. While the leaders/dictators of the two first nations have already fallen, many others are hopefully on their way out. These upheavals did not amuse the leadership in Beijing. In China, when some protesters (one cant call them dissidents) began to use the Internet to call for peaceful rallies in a dozen major Chinese cities, the regime had a panicky reaction. On the eve of the first rally, a meeting of the politburo was called by President Hu Jintao. It was decided to tighten the state control over the cyberspace and watch some specific groups of people, an ominous term targeting not only dissidents and human rights militants, but also environmentalists and all those who do not agree with the present regime.
According to official news agencies: Provincial heads, ministry chiefs and senior military officials were summoned to attend the meeting and all nine members of the standing committee were present.
Though the official agenda for the meeting was to adjust (Chinas) foreign policy, the main objective was clearly to formulate strategies to avoid a West Asia situation. (Hu) stressed that social management must be strengthened in order to ensure the CCP stays in power, explained The Straits Times.
The president defined the meaning of social management: Managing the people as well as serving them. The Chinese leaders usually speak of serving the people only, not managing them. This new concept was to maximise harmonious factors and minimise non-harmonious ones, according to Hu Jintao.
To achieve this, it was decided amongst other measures to strengthen the control on Internet the transmission of information as well as the guidance of the public opinion; to halt all independent reports, commentaries, and discussions (including Internet threads) on the situation in West Asia; to strengthen work of filtering and managing blogs, microblogs, and discussion fora; to assure that media uniformly adhere to the standard texts of the Xinhua in reports or commentaries on West Asia; to strengthen the management of the migrant population, more specifically large groups of people; to strengthen the control over social entities (Falun Gong and other such groups are probably targeted); and, to nip social unrest in the bud.
Beijings response was extremely tough when an online campaign called for weekly rallies all around China. Robert Saiget in the Sydney Morning Herald reported on one of these rallies: Hundreds of uniformed and plainclothes police smothered Beijings designated rally site on the Wangfujing shopping street, aggressively pushing away foreign reporters with cameras and briefly detaining several.
According to the Peoples Daily on February 21, Wu Banguo, a member of the all-powerful standing committee politburo of the CCP stated: Based on Chinas national conditions, (we) solemnly declare that we will not engage in a multi-party political system or in diversity of the guiding ideology. We will not pursue the separation of powers and the bicameral system, or engage in federalism or privatisation of property. In other words, the communist party will continue to keep its monopoly over the country. The politburo also decided to emphasise that the current turmoil is plotted by the United States behind the scenes.
Zhou Yongkang, the member in charge of national and public security confirmed that a national database containing basic information on the different strata of population would soon be set up. He also announced that an early warning system will be put in place to alert the authorities of any social grievances in order to diffuse possible incidents before they happen.
A few days later, Xinhua started to follow the new guidelines. It quoted from a Russian report Black Hand Can Be Seen behind the Turmoil in the Middle East and accused the US to have started the Egyptian unrest: The dramatic events happening in the Arab countries in recent weeks once again demonstrate that the United States has never observed the principle of not interfering in a sovereign countrys internal affairs.
The report states: The US gets rid of the dictators from the list of its past friends in order to arrange newly elected dictators. As long as it can help solve the problems facing the United States, the US State Department is willing to see crowds and blood in the squares belonging to other territories. Secretly starting a revolution from within is an ideal tool.
It is perhaps time for Beijing to stop blaming the West for its own problems and look into the aspirations of the people of China. But nothing seems able to stop the politburo which further emphasised that greater efforts to criticise and control microblogs should be made. They even seem ready to partly shut down the Internet; in the meantime, regional party bosses were requested to reduce reporting on any sensitive incident that might occur in your locale.
It is a pity that the leadership is unable to see that a democratic system, even if not perfect like in India (god knows that it is not perfect!) helps managing the often-genuine grievances of the masses. But do the apparatchiks in Beijing still care for the common men or are they just obsessed to keep the monopoly of the party over the nation?
The leaders in Beijing may be less corrupt than the Gaddafis or the Mubaraks, but the repression of the ordinary peoples aspirations is the same in China, in Libya or in Tunisia. This does not lead to stability and peace. One thing is sure, the worlds main rising power seems rather shaky and trembling. From this angle, the Middle Kingdom looks like a paper tiger. It seems obvious that in its dream of wild development, Beijing has forgotten to take the masses along.
Indian Defence Review
At the end of January, an article entitled Major Social Unrest Every Five Days in 2010 appeared, quoting a report on social unrest in China published by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The Annual Report on Chinas Crisis Management affirmed that every five days in 2010, there was a major incident of social unrest in the Middle Kingdom a 20 per cent increase from 2009. While 60 major incidents were reported in 2009, it climbed to 72 in 2010. Social unrest had spread throughout 29 provinces and cities (over 90 per cent), with most occurring in Henan, Beijing, and Guangdong. About 43 per cent of the incidents could not be resolved by the local governments and required intervention from upper levels of government to restore order. Interestingly, 67 per cent of the incidents were made public thanks to Internet, mainly through private blogs.
The flower revolutions began in Tunisia, rapidly spreading to Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world, giving an example to resentful Chinese masses. While the leaders/dictators of the two first nations have already fallen, many others are hopefully on their way out. These upheavals did not amuse the leadership in Beijing. In China, when some protesters (one cant call them dissidents) began to use the Internet to call for peaceful rallies in a dozen major Chinese cities, the regime had a panicky reaction. On the eve of the first rally, a meeting of the politburo was called by President Hu Jintao. It was decided to tighten the state control over the cyberspace and watch some specific groups of people, an ominous term targeting not only dissidents and human rights militants, but also environmentalists and all those who do not agree with the present regime.
According to official news agencies: Provincial heads, ministry chiefs and senior military officials were summoned to attend the meeting and all nine members of the standing committee were present.
Though the official agenda for the meeting was to adjust (Chinas) foreign policy, the main objective was clearly to formulate strategies to avoid a West Asia situation. (Hu) stressed that social management must be strengthened in order to ensure the CCP stays in power, explained The Straits Times.
The president defined the meaning of social management: Managing the people as well as serving them. The Chinese leaders usually speak of serving the people only, not managing them. This new concept was to maximise harmonious factors and minimise non-harmonious ones, according to Hu Jintao.
To achieve this, it was decided amongst other measures to strengthen the control on Internet the transmission of information as well as the guidance of the public opinion; to halt all independent reports, commentaries, and discussions (including Internet threads) on the situation in West Asia; to strengthen work of filtering and managing blogs, microblogs, and discussion fora; to assure that media uniformly adhere to the standard texts of the Xinhua in reports or commentaries on West Asia; to strengthen the management of the migrant population, more specifically large groups of people; to strengthen the control over social entities (Falun Gong and other such groups are probably targeted); and, to nip social unrest in the bud.
Beijings response was extremely tough when an online campaign called for weekly rallies all around China. Robert Saiget in the Sydney Morning Herald reported on one of these rallies: Hundreds of uniformed and plainclothes police smothered Beijings designated rally site on the Wangfujing shopping street, aggressively pushing away foreign reporters with cameras and briefly detaining several.
According to the Peoples Daily on February 21, Wu Banguo, a member of the all-powerful standing committee politburo of the CCP stated: Based on Chinas national conditions, (we) solemnly declare that we will not engage in a multi-party political system or in diversity of the guiding ideology. We will not pursue the separation of powers and the bicameral system, or engage in federalism or privatisation of property. In other words, the communist party will continue to keep its monopoly over the country. The politburo also decided to emphasise that the current turmoil is plotted by the United States behind the scenes.
Zhou Yongkang, the member in charge of national and public security confirmed that a national database containing basic information on the different strata of population would soon be set up. He also announced that an early warning system will be put in place to alert the authorities of any social grievances in order to diffuse possible incidents before they happen.
A few days later, Xinhua started to follow the new guidelines. It quoted from a Russian report Black Hand Can Be Seen behind the Turmoil in the Middle East and accused the US to have started the Egyptian unrest: The dramatic events happening in the Arab countries in recent weeks once again demonstrate that the United States has never observed the principle of not interfering in a sovereign countrys internal affairs.
The report states: The US gets rid of the dictators from the list of its past friends in order to arrange newly elected dictators. As long as it can help solve the problems facing the United States, the US State Department is willing to see crowds and blood in the squares belonging to other territories. Secretly starting a revolution from within is an ideal tool.
It is perhaps time for Beijing to stop blaming the West for its own problems and look into the aspirations of the people of China. But nothing seems able to stop the politburo which further emphasised that greater efforts to criticise and control microblogs should be made. They even seem ready to partly shut down the Internet; in the meantime, regional party bosses were requested to reduce reporting on any sensitive incident that might occur in your locale.
It is a pity that the leadership is unable to see that a democratic system, even if not perfect like in India (god knows that it is not perfect!) helps managing the often-genuine grievances of the masses. But do the apparatchiks in Beijing still care for the common men or are they just obsessed to keep the monopoly of the party over the nation?
The leaders in Beijing may be less corrupt than the Gaddafis or the Mubaraks, but the repression of the ordinary peoples aspirations is the same in China, in Libya or in Tunisia. This does not lead to stability and peace. One thing is sure, the worlds main rising power seems rather shaky and trembling. From this angle, the Middle Kingdom looks like a paper tiger. It seems obvious that in its dream of wild development, Beijing has forgotten to take the masses along.
Indian Defence Review
