Why the Chinese people continue to support the CCP

China was in a state of civil war for 150 years before Maozedong unified the entire nation once more under communism.   Mao had been an excellent opposition leader -- brilliant, creative, honest, just, kind, wise, democratic, courageous.  Once he had taken full control of the country, Mao degenerated into a kind of extreme Chinese Emperor.  He attempted extreme policies, and slaughtered tens of millions.  Nevertheless, the Chinese communist state endured.  The apparatus of the state was too powerful to be overthrown, and faith in Mao -- who was indeed a brilliant and charismatic man -- kept people going and loyal, for the most part, until his death in the 1970's.  At that point, the pragmatic, practical and comparatively moderate Dengxiaoping took over, and did actually drastically reduce both human rights violations and poverty in the nation of China, something that Maozedong was failing at rather badly for most of his administration, in any case.   Nevertheless, even Deng was forced to engage in some systematic violence which the Chinese people still haven't forgiven him for:  the Tiananmen Square massacre. Students had been protesting for increased democracy in 1989, as the prosperity of the country increased, and these protests became rather aggressive displays of passive resistance, and spread nationwide.  There wasn't violence, but, there was open defiance, including of the People's Liberation Army.  Deng feared a return to open civil war, he wanted to end the problem quickly so, seeing the local military were unwilling to fire on the students, he brought in outside forces, and they killed certainly hundreds, and thousands of protesting students.  This ended it.  There was no uprising, or rebellion.   Why, exactly?  Well, I suppose, up to a point anyway, the people may have actually agreed with Deng, once he put his foot down.  OK, they thought, maybe we aren't ready for full democracy, maybe we would go back to open civil war again, slaughtering each other for nothing.  And, things aren't so bad now, they are improving.  So, as Mao managed to keep people under control with his charisma, Deng managed to keep people under control by providing steady economic progress.  And, to some extent, that general model -- follow us, we will make you more prosperous than you are today -- has been followed by all Chinese leaders since.  And, it seems to work. But, it's a bit more complicated than that.  The fact is, despite the complaints of "authoritarianism" in China, incarceration rates are vastly lower than in the US.  China is a highly controlled society, in which surveillance is rampant and absolute for Chinese citizens, but, actually, this seems to keep crime rates rather low, in general.  So, people have little likelihood of actually getting into trouble with the law.  If they do, they have little chance of escape, of course.  It's a balance.  But, given the overpopulation of China, and its history of poverty and civil war, the government really isn't doing that badly, on the whole.  And, the population is expected to massively drop this century, back to the level it was in 1950 -- about 600 millions, from a peak of about 1.6 billion.  Potentially, China could be a rather prosperous and nice place to live by 2100, all thanks to the communists.  Nevertheless, when I suggest that China could become more "democratic" with fewer people and more prosperity, Chinese "monitors" online tend to get their backs up. They don't like the idea.  Perhaps, I should qualify what I mean by "democracy".  I do not necessarily mean the specific trappings of Western democracies, which, are distrusted by the Chinese leadership.  I merely mean, that the authorities could be less controlling, since there would be less danger of social instability in a society with fewer people, and more prosperity, and that being less controlling might enable these people to be even more productive. #china #ccp #communism #maozedong #dengxiaoping #law #authoritarianism #polticalrepression #politicalscience #history #philosophyofhistory #tiananmen #democracy #geopolitics #economics