Hacker News Reader

Comment by 40acres | Hacker News Reader

From the outside looking in the combination of Coronavirus response and Hong Kong protests are the strongest challenges to the Communist Party legitimacy I've ever seen. I think we're a long way from any possibility of downfall but its been interesting to see the backlash from mainland citizens over Li's death and even Xi go out and make public appearances to sure up the appearance of control over the virus response.

View on HN

Reading many Chinese sources made me doubt your assessment. Regular mainland Chinese are not happy. But not to the point that they are thinking alternative governance. Rather some of the anger are rooted with the expectation that the Party can be better in future.

The trust can get irreparably broken, though. This happened in eastern Europe, resistance was not an option so the result was widespread apathy and stagnation instead.

> This happened in eastern Europe

And the results are in.

Would you like to live in 1970s Russia or 1990s Russia as an ordinary Russian?

So you imply China mentality is closer to Russian - if the party falls, everything goes to hell?

I don't know, I was born in Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia had the advantage of being a small country next to the EU.

China had the disadvantage of being the most populous country in the world.

In crisis, economic or otherwise, Czechoslovakia is much more likely and capable of being rescued by the international community. China will need to rely on itself if only because it is way too big for any kind of help to be substantial and meaningful.

Thus the outcome will likely be even worse than Russia, which only has around 1/10th the population of China and an impressive natural resource reserve.

There are also countries that thrived economically after the fall of socialism. Why yes, I'll gladly take an apartment in East Berlin if you're offering me one.

You’re forgetting that China had a renaissance moment under the comunist party. They may not agree with some things but are majorly backing their government. They’re in a way rational, if the communist party fell overnight they’d be in big trouble, they wouldn’t be able to self govern democratically. The problem is that the party is corrupted and has absolutely no plans to reform. It will only get more corrupted before something significant changes.

I don't know anything about China but Taiwan and Hongkong apparently can govern itself democratically?

Hong Kong is China territory with semi-democracy government under "One country two system" policy. But most of the legislators are appointed by CCP or groups close to CCP. That's the reason why even facing landslide defeat in 2019 Hong Kong local elections, Chief Executive Lam doesn't budge a bit and continue to suppress protesters. Recently she refuse to close border with China which results in medical workers strike.

Taiwan is an independent country with full democracy system but not being recognized by international society because China is pushing its "One China" policy to other countries. Foreign countries or companies violate this idea would be punished economically by China(France got punished for selling Mirage 2000 to Taiwan)

HK and Taiwan are a completely different thing. They are not under the CCP rule. China has been trying to but quite unsuccessfully.

Look at the President of the US and how there isn't a revolution planned by anyone.

Right, the revolution did not happen because his election was like opening the pressure relief valve. There can still be reconciliation in the society.

Chinese system does not have any such valve.

I wonder what is more to blame: the government structure or the sheer number of citizens.

I assume the former but would be curious if anyone can make a compelling case for the latter.

I don't think "legitimacy" is a useful concept here. The Communist Party of China doesn't derive its power from the consent of the governed, as Mao said, it derives it from the barrel of a gun. As long as they have the weapons and continue to be ruthless enough to use them they are not going anywhere.

As big of a challenge as this is, the party has more control now than it ever had before. Control from technology but also control from social structure and how they teach people to think.

People have been saying the CCP is on its last legs for over 70 years.

USSR dissolved because of atrocious economy. It was hard for people to have their families fed, fixed prices and influx of money in the economy had led to a coupon system - basically a right to buy a certain quantity of sugar/dairy products/meat/etc. (I was born in the USSR and had lived through the agony of the regime)

Unless CCP somehow screws up the economy really BAD, driving everyone to the point of starvation, nothing will change.

And even then: looking at North Korea, people there were driven far beyond the point of starvation, and they still endure these hardships without any discontent against Kims.

USSR dissolved because of rogue 3 letter services took over the power and carved the country into their fiefdoms.

Take a look who took over the power after a collapse. In 9 out of 15 countries, the people who came to power after the collapse were ex-KGB

I don't agree with your assessment of those events. 3 letter services had very little control over the process of dissolution, and their attempt to stop it (the GKChP putsch) was met with decisive resistance.

Of course, in most republics local elites have cleverly kept the reigns of power in their hands, but those were the Party officials, not KGB officers. I think that Russia is the only ex-USSR country where KGB managed to seize complete control. Others are democracies (Baltic countries and, arguably, Georgia and Ukraine, maybe even Armenia), authoritarian states (Belarus, Russia) and a number of sultanates.

Agreed with all your points but I don't think DPRK is a good comparison to PRC. DPRK is small enough to brainwash all its citizens and imprison those that refuse, not so for PRC (although they do seem to be trying this in Xinjiang).

I don't think small nation is easier to control. For example, in Russia, whoever controls Moscow controls the country (don't want to explain here why exactly, so please just trust me in this). So, theoretically, a moderately big popular uprising against Putin in Moscow could gather 300K-500K protesters, and Moscow police would have just 30K riot troops to deal with it, plus 40K regular policemen. However, in a span of few hour, reinforcements from all over the country can be brought in from all over the country, bringing the number of riot police to 150K, quite comfortably enough to counter 500K protesters. And regional protesters have no real way to join the protests in the epicenter, because Russia is freaking big, travel is controlled by the government and can be ceased in case of emergency.

Side note: 2013-2014 protests in the Ukraine worked for a simple reason - not only protests enjoyed an overwhelming support in the capital, and had a fraction of parliament supporting it, Kiev is relatively close to western Ukraine, so many active protesters from there just got on buses and drove to join the fight and make the balance more even.

This said, I believe that the bigger the country, the easier it is to control, because government forces are way more mobile, which easier brings local numerical superiority. As for imprisonment, in a bigger country you just need more prisons, that can be achieved without much difficulties.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com