Preparing for Communist China’s Implosion

Commentary

Political, governmental, and social collapse in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) seems to be beginning.

What could result is a China ruled by a modified Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a China without the CCP, or “many Chinas” as the country devolves into warlordism and separate states.

This is occurring in the shadow of another reality: the fact that parts of communist China’s society have continued to make great technological progress.

Even when Imperial Russia collapsed in 1917, it was a society that, in part, was suffering and frustrated but that was also, in part, leading the world in some aspects of economic and industrial growth. World War I became the catalyst for the final collapse of the Russian Imperial government. This collapse was hardly the revolution it was later portrayed as.

Collapse often embodies the contradictory and simultaneous elements of significant growth and hope, alongside the frustration of certain social elements and the stifling paralysis of governmental structures. It often occurs when hopes have flourished and then been left unfulfilled or addressed too slowly.

The final catalysts may vary in scope from the serious to the trivial.

A vital, discreetly violent stage of a power struggle was unfolding by late September behind the bland, enigmatic facade of Zhongnanhai, the headquarters of the CCP, adjacent to the ancient Forbidden City of Beijing, and behind the inscrutability of major officials. The delicacy of the various challenges to CCP leader Xi Jinping is a testament to the fears of all parties in the power struggle. Each party knows that personal survival must be balanced with the survival of the entire CCP system and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

People in the CCP elite and the families of Party officials are dying or disappearing. The latest trigger was the alleged murder of a young actor, Yu Menglong, on Sept. 11 in Beijing. The unprecedented cover-up of the event was allegedly orchestrated by a senior Party official, Cai Qi. He is the first-ranked member of the Secretariat of the CCP, the fifth-ranked member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the CCP, and the director of the CCP General Office, making him the de facto chief of staff to Xi. This cover-up has further polarized the power struggle and triggered public outrage in the streets.

There have been many catalysts offering themselves up as the internal struggle plays out, but could this be the final or near-final catalyst?

And in the streets, another life-and-death struggle is underway as unemployment, starvation, disillusionment, and anger cause protests and depredations of the population occurring inexorably every day throughout mainland China. There is no longer any possibility of hiding from the public the extensive loss of civilian lives: The so-called disappearances have reached a statistically significant level.

Military units have begun making bold moves to position themselves in favor of, or against, key factions within the Party. These moves include displays of force in cities around Beijing. The question in the short term is not whether the military can suppress the population (although it could), but rather whether various military and security organs or factions may instead fight each other.

Therefore, it is a critical point in the battle for leadership of the Party and, consequently, of the PRC—and hence the population and territory of mainland China. This battle will almost certainly result in Xi being removed from power entirely. He has, for the past year, been increasingly isolated and removed from decision-making.

This is finally being recognized by China watchers worldwide. But the process is still unfinished. Xi’s demise or humiliation should be revealed in October, but the question still lingers as to whether the Party itself will long survive thereafter. There were clear indications by 2007 that collapse was likely by 2025.

However, by the end of September, before the Fourth Plenum of the 20th Party Congress was scheduled to be held, Xi and his remaining loyalists were attempting to save themselves. If they succeed in gathering some support from the military, then the outcome could be bloody and still jeopardize the ultimate fate of the CCP.

National collapse is never neat and never appears to be entirely rational. It always has a long history of painful, incremental degradation until the final steps appear, as if out of the dark. It occurs, eventually, with suddenness, whether through an outburst of revolution, a collapse of leadership, or, indeed, the precipitation of external or internal military action.

The collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1990 to 1991, in hindsight, gave all the signs of systemic fracturing that we have now witnessed in China over the past few decades. Like the so-called Russian Revolution that preceded it in 1917, the USSR collapse came at a time when the strict culture of the Soviet purges had been eased, and perestroika and glasnost were causing Soviet citizens to become optimistic.

Similarly, the French Revolution of the late 18th century (1789 to 1799), including the Bonapartist coup of Nov. 9, 1799, led to the creation of the First French Empire on May 18, 1804, and entailed great contradictions that triggered factional infighting and street responses.

Will Gen. Zhang Youxia, current arbiter of power in Beijing, become a new Napoleon Bonaparte?

Nothing suggests that the end of communist governance in China will be any less chaotic than the great government collapses of the past few hundred years, including the Iranian “Revolution.” It is important to stress that these events have rarely been revolutions in the classical, kinetic sense. They have, most often, been the result of the paralysis of governments that failed to adapt to changing circumstances.

In the PRC, the collapse of Xi’s governance could, as the Party hopes, be part of a smooth transition to a new communist (in fact, probably pseudo-communist) leader, enabling an even more peaceful handover than the one that occurred in the Soviet-to-Russian transition from 1990 to 1991. But that cannot be guaranteed. Unlike governance in the USSR, late-stage Xi governance in the PRC is marked by massive starvation, homelessness, and unemployment, which may not be containable.

There have been significant pressures on governments and traders around the world to ignore or rationalize the evolution of the process of change within the governance of China or the CCP. For this reason, there has been little international preparation for the collapse of the PRC governance and economy. This means that economic planning and national security threat assessments, to the extent that they include the PRC, are outdated and fail to fully account for long-term scenarios. These scenarios may include chaos emanating from China, unpredictable Chinese actions amid the turmoil, and ramifications for the “post-China” era.

As things stood in late September, it seemed that the stage was set for Youxia, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, to play a key role in ensuring and stabilizing the removal of power from Xi. There is some evidence that potential areas of dissent exist within the PLA. This may disrupt a calm transition.

If this happens, it could present an opportunity for an attempted military assault on the Republic of China (Taiwan’s official name). However, such an attack would be highly problematic for the PRC, even with the full resources of the PLA. Of course, it would also be enormously damaging to Taiwan and to Western access to Taiwan’s computer chip industry.

Attempts by the anti-Xi factions to restore economic stability to mainland China indicate that they almost all endorse the “pragmatism” of former CCP leader Deng Xiaoping; however, this may be insufficient to facilitate the rapid reconstruction of mainland society without the recognition that a market economy needs to be market-driven, not output-driven.

Deng and his successors believed that economic success is driven by industrial capacity and output. This belief resulted in massive overproduction and the collapse of commercial and industrial enterprises, as well as antagonism in global markets, which felt the burden of Chinese “dumping” of goods at prices below commercially viable levels.

The apparent fact that no plans are being discussed in Beijing to create a stable market economy in the PRC indicates that the recovery in China, if it is to occur in the medium term (in, say, the next decade), will be halting. If that turns out to be the case, then domestic unrest could (and almost certainly will) escalate, along with a mass exodus of Chinese people.

The statement by King Louis XV of France just before the French Revolution—”Après moi, le déluge”—has been interpreted as nihilistic and uncaring, an indication that the French king was indifferent to what happened to his state after his death. It actually should be interpreted in the opposite way. The phrase could also be said by Xi: After me, the deluge; after me, chaos will reign. Xi, like Louis XV, has been the architect of his own downfall, but it would be unwise to think that he does not care about what happens to his country after his fall.

They were true believers, in their own way. We see it now in the reality of the battle between the factions seeking to retain or acquire power in China.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.