The middle class have cell phones and Internet access. The middle class also has access to the upper reaches of the Communist Party, which relies on middle class administrators and technocrats, to make things happen. If the middle class turns on the Communist Party, the communists will lose. The revenge of the bourgeoisies, so to speak.
Standard procedure against angry powerless peasants don't work on these people.
Strategypage thinks that this trend will break the power of the communists.
Perhaps. In the long run this may be true. But I don't assume it. (Heck, I don't assume that we must be limited to one outcome when it comes to China) In the short run, however, the communists may find a new way to clamp down on this new power to resist that will put off the "inevitable" defeat of the communists.
And in the short run, China could cause us lots of problems.
Sometimes you just get screwed with no happy ending at all.
UPDATE: Mad Minerva emailed to note this article on the decline of Marxism in education:
The fear in the population is still present whether it is Marxist-inspired or just a run-of-mill thug dictatorship.
"The main reason Chinese officials and scholars do not talk about communism is that hardly anybody really believes that Marxism should provide guidelines for thinking about China's political future," he wrote. "The ideology has been so discredited by its misuses that it has lost almost all legitimacy in society…. To the extent there's a need for a moral foundation for political rule in China, it almost certainly won't come from Karl Marx."
Still, it isn't easy to find students who will expressly renounce Marxism.
It may be because they know that to succeed in China, it helps immensely to be a member of the ruling Communist Party. It may be because Marxism and Maoist philosophy are so deeply woven into the fabric of Chinese life that students take them for granted, the way some American students accept a constitutional democracy without thinking too deeply about the alternatives. It may be because they truly believe in Marxism, and see the current period as a necessary stage on the path to true communism.
Or perhaps it may simply be because they're afraid.
While this trend certainly provides a wedge to tip China toward democracy, China might just become an authoritarian threat to world peace.
China has time to choose whether they will be our friend or foe. We can handle either choice, I think.
