Just a Marker So I can Later Say I Told You So

 

It is becoming more obvious that the Chinese regime is collapsing. Having turned first to the iron fist, the CCP has predictably failed. Reportedly, systems are breaking down in China: internet blackouts, security cameras gone dead; explosions, fires, probably caused by sabotage; deflation, mass unemployment, business defaults, deserted shopping areas. The mandate of heaven is passing. 

Now the party is turning in desperation to the tactic they most feared: the Gorbachev turn. Rumour has it that the leadership is to be handed to Wang and Hu, two relatively reformist figures. Trying to open up and restructure (glasnost, perestroika) without knocking down the whole house did not work for the Soviet Union. In China, it previously dead-ended in Tienanmen. That’s why they’ve been resisting it.

It might have still worked in 2012. I doubt it can work now; Xi’s hardline methods have burned through the residual popular legitimacy this needs. I expect the whole thing to blow within a year.

Putin too is suddenly in grave difficulty, thanks to the recent Ukrainian drone strikes. If he goes, China is more likely to go. If China goes, he is more likely to go. Not that these regimes are dependant on each other, or ideologically aligned; but a revolutionary spirit is contagious across borders. 

Indeed, we already live in revolutionary times, and most established regimes look unsteady. Trump is staging a peaceful revolution in the US, as Milei is in Argentina, and Meloni in Italy. The regimes in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK all face hurricane-force populist headwinds. Klaus Shwab has stepped down. No telling who’s next.