If there’s one thing worth knowing about China – in terms of geopolitics and American national security at least – it’s that its rulers are almost as afraid of the people as the people are afraid of them.
Think about it. Why would a government place secret cameras everywhere? Censor any criticism of the government? Mount massive propaganda campaigns to defend the infallibility of the ruling Communist Party?
“In 2013 the party issued a list of seven topics that could no longer be discussed with students: universal values, a free press, civil society, civic rights, the party’s past ‘mistakes,’ corruption and an independent judiciary,” veteran China correspondent Isabel Hilton wrote in The Economist in 2018. “This speaks of fear rather than confidence.”
There are many reasons that China’s rulers fear the ruled. Historically, the transition from dictatorship to democracy is led by a large middle class. A prosperous middle class, no longer worried about simple survival, tends to demand representation in government, the rule of law and other staples of democracy. China now has an enormous middle class.
It also has an enormous number of very poor people, which can be destabilizing when you have considerable income inequality and corruption, which China also has.