I received another one of those annoying foreign language scam calls yesterday. They're utterly wasted on me, as (1) (relates to their first word - I'll explain shortly) the official legal language here is English, although other may be used to improve communication (using a different language that cannot be understood therefore is not OK), and (2) I have no idea what is being said. In fact, scam calls are why I divert ALL my calls, with an admonishment to leave a message or risk being reported as a scammer.
Anyway, there was a change yesterday: the message started with an English word: "warning". Of course, once it switched to what sounded (from the times if worked for a few weeks there - many years ago, which means I have forgotten most of what I knew of the language) like Chinese (which is also consistent with media reports I've report warning of Chinese language scams), I stopped listening and deleted the message (next time, I might get a friend to translate it).
Anyway, just in case it was a threat, rather than a scam, I want to get a few things clear:
- the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not the Chinese people;
- China, existing now as the Chinese people, has an illustrious history, which was brutally stopped by the Opium Wars, where Britain (and other Western nations) enforced devastation so the West could get more profit;
- the CCP has lifted many people people out of desperate poverty;
- notwithstanding that, the CCP is a brutal, human-rights-suppressing dictatorship of the type George Orwell wrote about in "Animal Farm" and "1984", and is seeking to brainwash the Chinese people and other peoples who have been invaded (Tibet) or are being threatened (Taiwan), and has shown by its actions in relation to Hong Kong that it lies (the "one nation, two systems" claims have been consistently undermined);
- the suppression of freedom of thought is now limiting the Chinese economy (as shown by its slowing growth), and thus is now being harmful even to those Chinese people who are not being actively suppressed;
- the CCP has a choice: it can become a genuinely progressive party,
allow people increasing genuine freedom, and thus start to harness the
talents of the Chinese people (which I know are there from the times I worked there), or, ultimately, be rejected by the Chinese people.
The longer the people are suppressed, the more violent and complete will be the way they overthrow the CCP * .
At that time, how the international community reacts will depend on how the CCP has treated other nations - with threats and acts of attempted intimidation and interference, or with respect.
Leninism and Stalinism lasted around seven decades in the USSR; the Maoist version has lasted around a similar time in China, and is likely to last at least a couple more (decades), but what then?
It's up to the CCP.
* This was a point made about the USSR in "The Craft of Political Analysis for Diplomats", by Raymond F. Smith (pub. Potomac Books, Washington, 2011, ISBN 978-1-59797-730-2, Amazon).
