Claudia Rosett of the WSJ is hoping so:
opinionjournal.com/columnist … =110003720
BTW, you can respond to her article (click the link near the bottom which says “Respond to this article” – requires JavaScript). I would be interested in seeing what people here, who are closer to the situation, think about it. If you write a response, you might want to post it here as well, since they only print about half of the ones I’ve sent in, which I assume is typical. You’ll need to respond by about 7pm Taipei time on Wednesday to make their deadline (I estimate that they start editing responses around 7am Eastern (US) time).
I think this guy is just selling papers and blowing hot air.
People in China these days are leading far better and more material lives than ever before (to be sure, lots of people’s lives still suck horribly e.g. forced marriages, forced prostitution, infanticide, corruption officialdom, cheap labour).
But many Chinese can now buy TVs, dvd players, own cars, own homes., etc. Why the hell would they force the government to collapse? Ask any Chinese and they will tell you they would rather endure a crappy government that has potential to change overtime than to plunge China into chaos again. This is a major phobia of the Chinese. Unfortunately, the govt can always play on this fear. The generation that was Tianamen is no more. Univ. kids these days are focused on success. There is a real, achievable future that was not possible in 1989.
Collapse will take something more than what is happening in HK. No doubt a lot of Chinese think that the HK have it too easy cf. to them and they are still complaining, in their minds.
Mapodofu:
I guess my immediate reaction was to go for stability and say the last thing I want to see is a China in turmoil with refugees spilling out all over the place, but then what really is the difference between my support of US action to get rid of Saddam in Iraq but now not in China. So I say Yikes but go for it anyway.
I will remain cautiously optimistic as with Iraq.