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2011-12-14 China-Japan-Koreas

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Posted by Grunter 2011-12-14 10:23|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 This has taken some interesting twists. It is also fairly near Hong Kong, I believe, which makes it a lot easier for news to get out.

For the communist party to retreat could be sending a strong signal that China has entered the cycle of decay last seen from 1908 to 1912, with Puyi, the last emperor of China. Somewhat dangerously, the decay cycle before that precipitated the Taiping Rebellion, about the time of the US Civil War.

Traditionally, the bureaucracy would withdraw from the countryside into Peking, letting the rest of China fall apart. If there is a general withdrawl of government in the rest of China, they could be in for a fun time of it.

Posted by Anonymoose 2011-12-14 13:38|| 2011-12-14 13:38|| Front Page Top

#2 Any bets on this village existing this time next week?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2011-12-14 13:40|| 2011-12-14 13:40|| Front Page Top

#3 Well, if they follow the pattern they have been following, they'll blame everything on the previous local party and just appoint a bunch of new subordinates so they can take the blame for the next revolt.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2011-12-14 13:44|| 2011-12-14 13:44|| Front Page Top

#4 From behind the roadblock, a propaganda war has broken out. Banners slung by the side of the main road to Wukan urge drivers to Safeguard stability against anarchy Support the government! Nearby, someone has scrawled, simply: Give us back our land.

After decades of tamely accepting excuses for the Party's depredations, some Chinese villagers are finally waking up. If a critical mass of the Chinese gentry and disgruntled low- and mid-level Party members ever decide that the problem isn't merely with central government-appointed local officials, but with the central government itself, then the party could see the beginning of serious challenges to its power. But suggestions that the Party is about to collapse are way premature. The 19th century Taiping rebels staged a revolt that killed 20m, led to their control, for a time, of hundreds of thousands of sq miles of territory and lasted 15 years. The rebels were crushed and the Qing dynasty ruled for another 40+ years after having been in power for 2 centuries.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2011-12-14 16:44|| 2011-12-14 16:44|| Front Page Top

#5 Well, if they follow the pattern they have been following, they'll blame everything on the previous local party and just appoint a bunch of new subordinates so they can take the blame for the next revolt.

Exactly. The villagers continue to show a touching faith in the Party's fundamental benevolence:

I have just been to see my 25-year-old son, Shen Shaorong, the mother of Zhang Jianding, one of the four, said as she cried on her knees. He has been beaten to a pulp and his clothes were ripped. Please tell the government in Beijing to help us before they kill us all,

Posted by Zhang Fei 2011-12-14 16:49|| 2011-12-14 16:49|| Front Page Top

#6 But Taiping could have only happened because the government had retracted into the Forbidden City, and their only impulse at such times is to prevent anyone else from asserting order and authority.

Hong Xiuquan was by all accounts little more than a hyper-charismatic fruitcake, with two of four (for the four winds) generals luckily being very good generals. At the same time, the Qing army was just as messy as the rest of the government, which is how rebels were able to seriously thump them for so long.

As further evidence of the decay were the independent, if opportunistic, revolts of Dungan and Panthay.

In any event, after the Empress Dowager Cixi came along, China again changed gears into a rebuilding mode, and the decay cycle was over.

Posted by Anonymoose 2011-12-14 17:42|| 2011-12-14 17:42|| Front Page Top

#7 But Taiping could have only happened because the government had retracted into the Forbidden City, and their only impulse at such times is to prevent anyone else from asserting order and authority.

The Taiping Rebellion occurred during a period of great budgetary stress caused by military defeats imposed by Western armies related to trade issues (Anglo-Chinese/Opium Wars I and II). The war reparations paid to France and Britain would have taken a toll on China's military preparedness because of War Department budget cuts. This was obviously on top of the expense of replacing Chinese military stores and shipping seized as war booty by the Western powers. Until almost the end of her reign, the Cixi regency learned not to engage in tests of strength with the Western powers, and no Western power really made any attempt to annex significant chunks of Chinese territory. In fact, I'd argue that without the Anglo-Chinese/Opium Wars, there might not have been a Taiping Rebellion. The sin of pride led Cixi to support the outburst of xenophobia that was the Boxer Rebellion, the costs (reparations and destruction of Chinese civilian and military infrastructure during the subsequent war) of which led to the eventual collapse of the Qing dynasty less than a decade later.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2011-12-14 18:51|| 2011-12-14 18:51|| Front Page Top

#8 Not knowledgable enough to pass any judgement on this. I will simply pray the Chinese Government doesn't wipe them out completely.

Posted by Charles 2011-12-14 22:19|| 2011-12-14 22:19|| Front Page Top

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