Today’s guest post is from is Eric D. Mertz on a topic that he is very passionate about.
***
No dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power tyrants and dictators cannot stand. The Centauri learned that lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free.
-Citizen G’Kar
In a time of global chaos it should come as a surprise to no one the unrest has reached China.
- Their cities are choked with apocalyptic levels of smog
- Over half their rivers have outright disappeared
- The ones which remain are open cesspools of untreated sewage and industrial waste to the point a 2006 article in the Wall Street Journal declared the Yangtze may be polluted beyond the capacity to be saved [1]
- 90 percent of the water table – the primary source of drinking and farm water across the world’s largest nation – has been polluted, with 60 percent polluted to the point of severity, per the China Geological Survey
- The decision to push industry out of the cities and into the countryside has resulted in the mass production of what are termed “Cancer Villages” where up to 90 percent of deaths are due to carcinogenic pollution, with some villages now reporting lead poisoning in every child born there
- 70 percent of China’s farmland is polluted with industrial waste, and as much as 7.4 million acres have been so heavily polluted agriculture is impossible, an area which could be producing 2.29 megatons of rice [2], enough to feed almost a quarter billion people [3]
- Somewhere between 75% and 100% of all industrial assets in China are owned by State Operated Enterprises which practice a cargo cult form of market economics as run by the government [4], with their boards and CEO’s chosen by the Communist Party of China [5], which can get the CEO killed if they are in the wrong clique [5].
- Those who manage to become rich in the 20% of China’s economy which is not state operated tend to disappear without a trace [6]
- With all property being held by the government without even the protection of fee simple property rights enjoyed in the United States and Commonwealth countries, the Chinese people face potential eviction in eminent domain deals which would make Donald Trump salivate with envy [7]
- Movement up the ladder in China is only possible within the Communist party, and even that is not safe as each successive leader undertakes an often bloody purge of his opponent’s guanxi (most commonly translated as clique or informal social network) [8], an attitude which extends to the SOE’s which are run by hand-picked members of the current President’s guanxi.
Across the world’s oldest country, the chickens are coming home to roost. Illegal labor strikes doubled between 2014 and 2015, to reach 2774 across the country. In Hong Kong, the people rose up in the Umbrella Revolution in response to the 2014 attempt by Beijing to restrict their political and economic freedoms. Across China, Christians are rising up to protest government crack downs of their symbols of faith.
And now, the people of Hong Kong are rising up in violent protests against the Chengguan.
Technically not a police force, the Chengguan – City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau – are in charge of enforcing licensing on street vendors, work safety, pollution, and sanitation. However, as with every enforcement agency in a tyrannical state throughout history, they are little more than thugs with badges and a modicum of authority, as documented in a 2012 report by Human Rights Watch. Though the Chinese government has done their best to censor knowledge and reporting of these abuses, it is a common topic on the state-run microblogging service Sina Weibo.
And nowhere are these abuses harder felt than in Hong Kong. Which brings us to Hong Kong’s Fish Ball Revolution.
On first blush, it seems like an odd thing to spark a revolution. A crack down on illegal street vendors selling balls of fish meat on kebab sticks in one of Hong Kong’s poorest neighborhoods does not seem like something worth rioting over. But that is only because the crackdown acted as the seed around which the movement grew.
Remember the Arab Spring which toppled governments across the Middle East and gave ISIS fertile ground in which to grow and spread? It all began with the self-immolation and death of Mohamed Bouazizi in Sidi Bouzid. That man’s death was simply the final straw after decades of violence and tyranny by strong men across the Middle East.
And now it is China’s turn. To no one’s surprise, it is starting in Hong Kong.
- The 2014 Umbrella Revolution failed to win Hong Kong the right to continue to use their old election rules
- Booksellers in Hong Kong have been black bagged to the Mainland
- Beijing is encouraging Mainlanders loyal to the Communist Party to settle in Hong Kong in order to hasten the islands’ move into the fold 31 years ahead of schedule
- Hong Kong residents are banned from travelling to the mainland
- The independent judiciary is being suborned to the will of the Party, with many dissidents being exported to the Mainland for “trial”
- The mainland is enforcing ideological conformity on Hong Kong’s seven universities
- Journalists are self-censoring to the point Hong Kong has fallen to 70th on the Reporters without Borders Press Freedom Index
- The South China Morning Post – the number one newspaper by circulation both in Hong Kong and abroad – has been purchased by Ali Baba, which has extensive ties to the government.
Is it any wonder the Chinese people have risen up?
The question then becomes, what happens next? I’ve long predicted the Communist Party of China will not live out the decade. The structural instabilities are too widely known even with the government’s best attempts to censor the internet and the press. While I have my own theories on the subject, they are just that, theories.
And we all know how the last one ended.
[1] Shai, Oster, “It may be too late for China to save the Yangtze goddess,” The Wall Street Journal, 6 December 2006.
[2] Numbers based on Missouri Rice Facts report of 5 year average for the state of Missouri, numbers for China are unknown due to official misinformation and classification of crop yields as state secrets
[3] Numbers based on International Rice Research Institute’s report of 103 kg (227.076 lbm) of rice production per year in Asia
[4] James McGregor, No Ancient Wisdom, No Followers: the Challenges of Chinese Authoritarian Capitalism (Westport: Prospecta Press: 2012)
[5] Walter and Howie, Red Capitalism
[6] Ben Blanchard, “Chinese billionaire mining tycoon Liu Han is executed over his links to a ‘mafia-style’ gang,” Sydney Morning Herald, 9 February 2015
[7] Becker, City of Heavenly Tranquility
[8] Shi Jiangtao, “Struggle for supremacy by party factions now on display,” South China Morning Post, 13 October 2012.
