> The true story with China is that moving Western manufacturing to China raised the standard of living for literally hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty.
And thereby strengthened the hand of the CCP.
And thereby strengthened the hand of the CCP.
People who can afford a good education are harder to control.
You can see it right now in Putin's Russia. Opposition to the regime, to the extent that it exists, does not come from the proles.
The protesters were the well educated students. This will always be the tip of the spear for change.
Revolutions that try to leverage the uneducated masses are the most bloody and destructive - and they usually lead to dictatorships, not democracies.
They definitely had much more to lose than Marx's lumpen proletariat.
Of course, now people in China, especially in the rich coastal cities, have dramatically more to lose. They've been shown though that they would be allowed to prosper, as long as they do not try to disobey or even express doubt about CCP's rule. So it's pretty easy for them to convince themselves that CCP's policy is fine enough and not worth protesting against.
Aka nothing to lose. Having family and job would be considered having things to lose. Also let’s not consider students “educated”, they will be if they then build a career and actually practice their knowledge. Any clown can get a degree.
Citation: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691177823/wh...