The 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations were triggered by runaway inflation and Deng's characteristic bungling. Despite our media's desperate efforts to portray them as such, they had nothing whatever to do with Western style democracy. The Chinese, who expect beneficial Confucian governance are far less tolerant of State incompetence than are we, accustomed as we are to millennia of Roman governmental incompetence.
BTW: "China under the rule of the Communist Party" is quite inaccurate. Chinese government is not and has never been monarchical, despite the fact that the country had emperors. Like the Communist Party, Chinese emperors had a moral, even priestly function, to set a good example and protect the sacred flame of Chinese civilization.
Thus the relationship between the Party and the people is utterly alien to us, as Martin Jaques explains: "The reason the State enjoys a formidable legitimacy in the eyes of the Chinese has nothing to do with democracy but can be found in the relationship between the State and Chinese civilization. The State is seen as the embodiment, guardian and defender of Chinese civilization. Maintaining the unity, cohesion and integrity of the Chinese civilization-state is perceived as the highest political priority, the sacrosanct task of the Chinese State. Unlike in the West, where the State is viewed with varying degrees of suspicion, even hostility and regarded, as a consequence, as an outsider, in China the state is seen as an intimate, as part of the family, indeed as the head of the family. "
In fact, the nation-state system has an Achilles’ heel of legitimacy. This makes almost all nation states have tyrants or dictatorships when they are established. Without violent maintenance or external support, it quickly fell apart.
This is also what Marx believed that "the state is a tool of violent rule." Any good imagination will be vanished in the face of this fact, and the process of change in China in 1945 is part of this rule.
The essence of capitalism is even worse on the basis of the nation-state system. This is also one of the main challenges of the global society in the 21st century.
The 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations were triggered by runaway inflation and Deng's characteristic bungling. Despite our media's desperate efforts to portray them as such, they had nothing whatever to do with Western style democracy. The Chinese, who expect beneficial Confucian governance are far less tolerant of State incompetence than are we, accustomed as we are to millennia of Roman governmental incompetence.
BTW: "China under the rule of the Communist Party" is quite inaccurate. Chinese government is not and has never been monarchical, despite the fact that the country had emperors. Like the Communist Party, Chinese emperors had a moral, even priestly function, to set a good example and protect the sacred flame of Chinese civilization.
Thus the relationship between the Party and the people is utterly alien to us, as Martin Jaques explains: "The reason the State enjoys a formidable legitimacy in the eyes of the Chinese has nothing to do with democracy but can be found in the relationship between the State and Chinese civilization. The State is seen as the embodiment, guardian and defender of Chinese civilization. Maintaining the unity, cohesion and integrity of the Chinese civilization-state is perceived as the highest political priority, the sacrosanct task of the Chinese State. Unlike in the West, where the State is viewed with varying degrees of suspicion, even hostility and regarded, as a consequence, as an outsider, in China the state is seen as an intimate, as part of the family, indeed as the head of the family. "
Dear Professor Adam, thank you for your sharing.
In fact, the nation-state system has an Achilles’ heel of legitimacy. This makes almost all nation states have tyrants or dictatorships when they are established. Without violent maintenance or external support, it quickly fell apart.
This is also what Marx believed that "the state is a tool of violent rule." Any good imagination will be vanished in the face of this fact, and the process of change in China in 1945 is part of this rule.
The essence of capitalism is even worse on the basis of the nation-state system. This is also one of the main challenges of the global society in the 21st century.