Strange things are being reported out of China lately. Thousands of domestic air flights have been canceled. The military is blocking highways in and around Beijing. More Wuhan virus lockdowns. Even a report that Xi Jinping has been overthrown in a coup and is under house arrest. This last one is a laugh.
Well, I could be wrong. It is impossible to tell what is going on, for sure, in China; I didn’t even know when I lived there. Even the best China experts in America are scratching their heads. You can never believe anything the China press reports, because it is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, and communists will lie about anything and everything. Lying has become a cultural tradition in China (believe me on that one, I spent 10 years there and NEVER knew when I was being told the truth), and, of course, communist morality is “whatever is best for the party.” So, if that means telling massive lies or killing millions of people, that is exactly what they will do. And have done. And will continue to do.
We do know that a major Communist Party conference is slated to start October 16. Xi Jinping, the General Secretary/President, has served two five-years terms and, according to China’s constitution (ha!), that is all he is allowed and should step down. But he doesn’t want to. He wants to be dictator for life, and the best money says that is exactly what will happen.
But he does have opposition, and he has been doing all he can, in recent months, to let them know he will brook no dissent. As I posted on Townhall a few weeks ago, the lockdowns have zero to do with the virus and everything to do with keeping Xi in power. But Xi’s enemies haven’t given up easily, and I suspect that is behind a lot of what has happened in China this year, and currently. We are talking absolute power here, folks, or as absolute as one person can have. When there is that much power at stake, a lot of people want it, and Xi is having to beat them off. Even the all-powerful Mao Zedong had to do the same thing. After his disastrous “Great Leap Forward” from 1958-62, where tens of millions of Chinese were starved to death or otherwise killed (estimates range as high as 45 million), there were some Communist Party cadres who thought they might be able to wrestle power away from a weakened Mao. Not so. In 1966, Mao introduced the “Cultural Revolution,” which lasted until his death in 1976, and which was basically nothing more than Mao killing thousands, millions, of his enemies, many of them former “friends”” in the CCP, to solidify his hold on power. Stalin did the same thing in the “Great Terror” in the late 1930s. By the end of the Terror, almost none of the people who had helped Lenin start and win the Revolution were still alive; Stalin had shot them all. I have a suspicion that everything going on in China now is a power play ahead of the October 16 meeting. And Xi holds four aces.
There are perhaps some power-seekers in the CCP who think it is time for Xi to step down, and perceive that, somewhere, he has some weaknesses. He is almost 70 years old, but that’s not really a problem; Mao reigned until he was 82. It’s power they seek and power that Xi wants to hold onto. Sometimes the coup-guys win; Brezhnev overthrew Khrushchev in 1964. But that doesn’t appear likely in China this year. The Chinese people basically like Xi Jinping. Their material lives have definitely improved in the last 2-3 decades, and the guy at the top generally gets the credit for that. The Chinese are tired of the lockdowns, for sure, but they have absolutely no say over who rules their country. So, regardless of what happens at the ChiCom meeting next month, the decision will be made by the Party and there is nothing the people of China can do about it. And nothing will change for them, regardless of who wins. Xi will be the victor (is my guess) mainly because he seems still strong within the Party and, moreso because he controls the military. “Power comes out of the barrel of a gun,” Mao said. Xi knows that, and it’s also why Joe Biden threatens to park an F-15 in front of your house and wants to take away your right to defend yourself. And is persecuting his political enemies. There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping.
Xi does have it a little easier than Joe, though, simply because China, for thousands of years, has had one-man rule. They used to call him “Emperor,” now they call him “General Secretary'' or “President.” The Emperor had his nobility, the GenSec has his “party” or “nomenklatura.” Same thing. It’s all the Chinese people have ever known.Maybe someday they will get a democracy. But it’s not going to happen this year. And it isn’t happening now.
Vladimir Putin’s a prick and our Moron-in-Chief seems determined to make him really mad. But China is the country that scares me.
Mark Lewis is a native Texan currently living in Thailand. He has a Master's degree in history and has taught history and English in America, South Korea, and China. His first book, Whitewater, a western novel, was recently published, and is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Eliva.com. And check out his new blog at thailandlewis.blogspot.com
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