They are very clear about it.
‘The Communist Party knows what is good for you. So you have to do as we say.
If you don’t, then there will be consequences.’
One such consequence is being reeducated. You are taught the right way to think.
‘Party people have tried very hard to do the thinking for you, so you should be grateful to be the recipient of such wisdom.’
Xi Jinping has even put his ‘elevated thoughts’ into a booklet, ‘Xi Jinping Thought’, just like Mao Ze Dong did before him with the little Red Book.
Is there a cost to trying to do your own thinking?
Just ask the Hong Kong dissenters who are now in prison or exile, after the celestial powers of Xi Jinping came down hard and crushed them in 2019.
China is asking the world to respect their way of doing things, because that is best for their people. Never mind asking the Uyghurs in Xinjiang province how they feel about it. They, too, like Hong Kongers, have felt the mighty Chinese fist.
China is presently holding their 20th National Congress, where Xi Jinping is expected to be reelected to a third 5 year term as president. Speculation has it that he’ll ask for a fourth term at the next congress in 2027. And on and on.
China has studied carefully the downfall of the Soviet Union, to ensure they don’t make the same ‘mistakes.’ Mistakes being anything that erodes the party’s integrity and clout.
As far as they’re concerned, Gorbachev was an idiot and weakling and his policies of Perestroika (restructuring) and Glasnost (opening) exactly what to avoid to prevent the erosion of their power.
But Gorbachev was no idiot. Instead he opened the way to free many countries that had languished under the tight controls of the Soviets. Sadly, the reforms he made possible didn’t last in Russia itself. He transferred power to Boris Yeltsin in 1991 and then Yeltsin chose Putin as premier in 1999. That was the big mistake.
Had Yeltsin been a better judge of character, Russia would not have been saddled with the profound limitations of Putin.
With the enormity of the atrocities committed by him, the likelihood is that the post Putin era will be one of greater openness. The very opposite of what China would like.
Which may create tensions between them. Let’s hope so.
People in power in China have persuaded their citizenry that deferring to a one party system is the answer. They have been told to sacrifice their freedom to accomplish their goals of world domination. The Chinese population is under close surveillance and lacks freedom of speech.
They have made enormous material progress in the last 40 years, in large part due to their opening to the West which brought in ideas and technological knowhow.
That in turn stimulated China’s own creativity.
But the mistake they make is to think that freedom can be sacrificed.
Even in open and democratic societies, not all people choose freedom. But those who do are the ones who keep the forward thrust of nations alive.
Human beings can sacrifice freedom temporarily to attain certain goals, but it should not be for long. Being distant form it ends up diminishing us.
China is going through a prosperous period at present. But it won’t last.
As the pace of prosperity begins to diminish, the communist party and its army of non thinkers will rage against its perceived enemies which will lead to disastrous actions.
Cruelty of the same dimension as what we’ve seen in Ukraine, lies in the future of China.
We’ve seen it with Uyghurs and Hong Kongers. They’ll try to do it also with Taiwan.
We, meanwhile, should do all we can to increase our strengths – industrial, military and civic – so we can go to the assistance of those in need like we do today in Ukraine.
The reelection of Xi Jinping for a third term is not a good sign.
China’s reluctance to be open has already had enormous consequences. After the outbreak of CoVid 19 in Wuhan, they refused to cooperate with the World Health Organization to investigate the source of the spread.
When Australia asked for an investigation of such action, China responded with trade restrictions on that nation.
That’s who they are. Creative in some ways, backwards in some others. Always controlling.
We should not let down our guard and must keep strengthening our country and the West.
Otherwise, China will be reeducating us into thinking like them.
We earn our freedom every day.
Oscarvaldes.medium.com
Oscar Valdes 