We all have some interests which influence us in every decision in life. And when some people have at least one common interest, a group is formed. This includes all groups from school friend circles to gender groups and from the\ audience of a YT channel to residents of one country.

And one thing nurtures the solo ideology necessary for the formation of the group – the information from childhood to the present day. And using this information, the Chinese Communist government has bound its people with the spirit of nationalism. So, we will discuss why China hasn’t collapsed like the Soviet Union despite so many internal issues?

Why China Is Not Collapsed Like USSR?

There are many reasons for China not to collapse like USSR, but before going to China, we will know 

Similarities Between China and USSR

The biggest and only commonality between China and the USSR is communism. In 1922, Vladimir Lenin defeated the Russian Emperor, the Last King Nicholas II, to establish the USSR on the ideology of Karl Marx. And from this communism started spreading in the USSR.

Now we will know the 6 fundamentals of communism which later became the reason for the destabilization of the USSR in 1979 –

1. Total abolition of private property
2. State-centralized banking system
3. Government ownership of transportation and transmission vehicles
4. Hefty progressive income tax on everyone
5. Property rights confiscation
6. Elimination of rights of heritage

All these principles show that there is only a central government-owned system in communism. And in this USSR, Beurocrats and government officials got more power. The misuse of power later became the cause of corruption on a very large scale. Along with this, the USSR also got to see the loss of several billion dollars in the Afghanistan invasion, due to which starvation and poverty started increasing in the country. Apart from this, there were many reasons for the fall of the USSR. But the root of all these reasons was the many communist policies like the state-centralized banking system and total abolition of private property.

 A similar situation prevails in China today. A few days ago, news has come that in the 2nd quarter of FY 2022, China’s economic growth was only 0.4% due to the lockdown imposed under the zero covid policy. A bruising regulatory crackdown on the private sector and a real estate crisis are causing rising bad debt at banks and growing social protests. And the biggest example of the private sector crackdown is Chinese Billionaire Jack Ma, whose net worth of $48.4 Billionaire has fallen by more than half in one year to $22.8 billion. During the lockdown, lakhs of citizens were confined to their homes, shops, and restaurants, and factories were closed. affecting consumer activity and disrupting the supply chain.

Making the situation worse financially, the decline in property investment in China, which contributes 20% to the Chinese economy, shows no sign of improvement. banks have been rattled this week by reports that households in dozens of cities have stopped paying mortgages due to property developers’ failure to complete the construction of their homes. In the last few days, there was news related to this that developers let Chinese farmers pay for homes with watermelons, due to a lack of savings. And China tries to downplay this.

And Now we discuss that 

How does China avoid revolt?

These are many reasons that consecutively help china to avoid anti-government revolts – 

1. Homogenous China/Single Nation-State

China is a multi-ethnic group country with a population of 1.4 billion. It is also home to 55 other ethnic (minorities) groups, with Han Chinese (91.50%) being the largest ethnic group. All 55 minority ethnic groups recognized by the People’s Republic of China with a population of 108 million (8%) are primarily located in the bordering northwest, north, northeast, south, and southwest but with some in central internal zones.

Just like in India, all these groups have different cultures, languages, and dressing-style in China. But China wants to erase the identity and history of all these ethnic groups and create a homogenous country. Xi Jinping wants to develop a single nation-state in which all people follow a single culture and all have the same traditions.

The first target of CCP’s new “single nation-state” policies was the autonomous Xinjiang province in western China, home to about 25 million locals including Turkic, Uighurs, Tajik, Kazakhs, and other groups. Tibet and Xinjiang are traditionally the most restive provinces of china, with long-time movements endorsing independence from Beijing’s rule. The new guidelines are therefore being presented more forcefully in those areas, with imprisonment camps and population transfers to other regions of the nation.

In these detention centers, such people are being forced into Chinese culture. And the feeling of separation from China is being eliminated inside the people. China has imposed many restrictions on Uighur Muslims, which include many regulations such as the way of worship, and not keeping the beard. 

As a portion of that policy objective set by Xi, the officials put the region under tight surveillance, destroyed mosques and sanctums, sent citizens to work in factories, stepped up birth control steps for Muslim women, and placed children in boarding schools.

Various media sites in Western Countries claim that China has demolished 16,000 mosques. In addition, the architecture of many historic mosques is being redesigned in the Chinese style. Further than that, the mass population has also transferred from Tibet to various provinces of China so that people do not start protesting against the government.

Last year, the Chinese government banned the public celebration of Christmas in China to reduce Western Influence. Like mosques in China, churches are also being redesigned architecturally. To reduce the external influence, the Chinese government has issued a provision to rewrite the Muslim and Christian religious books Quran and Bible respectively. 

Last week China’s President Xi Jinping visited Xinjiang Province for the first time in his 8-year tenure. And there he said that Islam in China must be Chinese in orientation. Taking this further, he said that all Uyghur Muslims are of Chinese origin and their future is also in China.

2. Generate External Conflict to divert people’s interest

The Chinese communist government also uses external conflicts significantly to keep its citizens in the spirit of nationalism. We have seen the biggest example of this in the Indo-Sino War of 1962. When China was battling the world’s biggest starvation till the time China attacked India in 1962 and captured Aksai Chin. More than 65 million people were killed in this famine. Due to this, the policies of the Chinese government were involved in private property abolition, high tax, and land collectivization.

Today, China is engaged in territorial and maritime disputes with its 18 neighboring countries. Internal stability is not the only reason for these expansionist policies of China, but there are also huge economic and political intentions hidden behind it.

China has been under the rule of powerful imperial dynasties in its long history. And all these dynasties took control of many distant areas to expand their borders. But after a long gap, their status changed and today those areas are part of other countries. For example – China considers Bhutan, Nepal, and Arunachal Pradesh as part of Tibet. Because the Yuan Dynasty spread to Tibet, Laos, North & South Korea, and the extensive regions of Mongolia. Thus, some areas of Kyrgyzstan were ruled by the Han dynasty. This is the reason why China claims the Uighur Muslim majority Xinjiang Province as part of historically China. And considers Uighur Muslims and Xinjiang Province as part of China.

For this reason, when China occupied Tibet based on its historical relation, the Dalai Lama, the head of state of Tibet, took refuge in India. And today Shimla also runs its government from Himachal Pradesh itself. China considers the Dalai Lama to be a Separatist and when India gave him asylum, it attacked India in 1962.

Now the Chinese government is assuring the minorities that they are part of China and that it will annex the rest area and join China. For example, part of Tibet, Arunachal Pradesh, Bhutan, and Nepal.

Behind China’s Maritime Dispute are islands saturated with various natural resources located in the South China Sea. By occupying these islands, China will become more economically powerful, and the main pillar of a communist government is only economic power.

3. Digital Isolation – Great Firewall of China

Now the question will be in your mind how does China suppress its Protestants so easily? The answer is – making Chinese people digitally isolated. For this, China developed an Internet firewall in 2006.

The Internet had arrived in China by 1994. And by 1997 the Internet had become a standard communication and tool for trading platforms. That is why the government took some initial steps to control internet usage by issuing comprehensive rules. In 1998, some of the top leaders who led the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protest formed a new party called the China Democracy Party (CDP). The Chinese Communist Party(CCP) banned the CDP by arresting and imprisoning top leaders.

Understanding the power of the Internet in 1998 itself, the CCP decided to control it. and launched the Great Firewall (GFW) Project in the same year. So that no one can make a network against the Chinese government through the internet. The Chinese State Council issued a document in September 2000 that listed 9 categories of information that could be censored, blocked, or filtered from access to citizens using the Internet within China:

1. Opposing the basic regulations as they are confirmed in the Constitution.
2. Threatening the security of the nation, revealing state secrets, degrading state power, or jeopardizing the integrity of the nation’s harmony
3. Hurting the honor or the interests of the nation
4. Provoking hatred against people, racism against people, or disrupting the solidarity of peoples
5. Disrupting national guidelines on religion, propagating evil cults and feudal superstitions
6. Spreading rumors, disturbing social order, or disrupting social peace
7. Spreading vulgarity, pornography, violence, murder, gambling, terror, or encouraging the execution of a crime
8. Offending or defaming third parties, violating the legal rights and interests of third parties
9. Containing any other content restricted by law or administrative rules

The reasons behind the Internet censorship in China include:

• Social control: the Internet is a means for freedom of speech, and the dissemination of movements could lead to protests against the government.
• Sensitive content: to control information about the Chinese Communist government.
• Economic protectionism: China prefers the use of local companies that are regulated by Chinese regulations, since they have more power over them, e.g. Baidu over Google, Tencent Video (YouTube), Sina Weibo (Twitter), Qzone (Facebook), WeChat (WhatsApp), Ctrip (Orbitz and others), and Zhihu (Quora).

Along with GSW, China also started the Golden Shield Project (GSP) in 2003. The Golden Shield Project is different from the Great Firewall (GFW), which has a different task. The distinctions are listed down:

1. The GFW is a tool for the propaganda system, whereas the Golden Shield Project is a mechanism for the public security system.
2. The GFW is a national gateway for filtering foreign websites, whereas the Golden Shield Project is for monitoring the domestic internet.

4. Chinese Education System, Military, and Propaganda Mesh

This is such a move of the Chinese government that eliminates all the possibilities of the Chinese Communist government collapsing.

Recently, Palacky University and CEIAS jointly published a report in which Chinese views of the world at the time of the Russia-Ukraine war were studied.

In this report, various questions were asked from the Chinese people and an attempt was made to know their views of the people. The questions asked in this report and their answers in the context of India are given below –

Figure 1: How positively or negatively do you feel about the following countries?

Answer: About 60% of the people answered in the negative.

Figure 2: If there is no pandemic, to what extent do you want to visit the following places as a tourist?

Answer: About 65% of the people voted in the negative.

Figure 3: How economically powerful or economically weak do you consider these countries/entities? 

Answer: About 50% of the Chinese said that the Indian economy is weak.

Figure 4: How militarily powerful or militarily weak do you consider the following countries/entities? 

Answer: About 43% of the Chinese said that the Indian military is weak.

A lot of questions were asked in the report if you want to read this. But with the help of the following questions, you understand the mindset of common Chinese citizens. You see how china manipulates people against India, with the help of its propaganda. All this is happening due to propaganda like gifting stones after the Galvan Valley Incident of the Chinese government. Well, we had already exposed this in the Exposed: China Gifting Galwan Valley Stones: A Propaganda?

Apart from this, the ultimate way of suppressing any internal protest against the Chinese government is the use of the military. The biggest example of this we have seen is in 1989’s Tiananmen Square Massacre. In 1989, to suppress the Protest, the Chinese communist government crushed its own 10,000 civilians to death with tanks and military. Tiananmen Square Massacre was the Darkest Chapter Of Communism In China.

And this week the news has come that China, sensing the anger among the people due to the economic crisis, took down the military with tanks on the streets.

In the Chinese education system, such education is being imparted from a child’s nursery school so that they do not come up with alternative thoughts and ideas. From the very beginning, he is taught to sing praises about the communist government. Apart from this, the Chinese government is also manipulating its history so that the new generation remains unfamiliar with the dark side of communism. Last year, a statue made in memory of the students killed in the Tiananmen Square Massacre at Hong Kong University was also demolished so that future generations would not know about him. Apart from this, all types of western influences have also been eliminated. Banned cultural, economic, and political ideas from the Western World and Japan. Even a person can watch only government-recognized anime.

In the name of social science and political science, Xi Jinping’s ideas on socialism are being taught with Chinese specialty in the new era. And the views of a communist leader like Xi Jinping on socialism will be anti-socialistic.

Also Read, XI JINPING – Man Of Menace

Conclusion

In conclusion, we saw how the Chinese communist government uses military and digital isolation to quell the protests against them. At the same time, to strengthen the foundation of communism in China, the education system has also been made communist-oriented. Thus the Chinese government is creating a homogenous country with a common language, tradition, culture, and ideology.