IS CHINA NEXT?

AMID MIDEAST UNREST, IS CHINA NEXT?

Like many Arab nations, China has one-party rule, corruption and soaring food prices – but experts say that its stunning record of economic success militates against pressure for revolutionary change.

AFP

Dawn.com, February 21, 2011

A fear of social chaos among a population who suffered through the Cultural Revolution and the feeling that there is a better future, even under the current political system, also make revolt unlikely, they say.

A web campaign calling for demonstrations Sunday in 13 major Chinese cities similar to those that brought down the regimes in Egypt and Tunisia was met with a massive security clampdown and the arrest of several top activists.

China’s ruling Communist party has seemingly learned the lessons of the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests, which ended in a bloody crackdown that saw hundreds, if not thousands, killed by army fire in the heart of Beijing.

“I don’t think China will be the next domino,” Perry Link, a China scholar at the University of California at Riverside, told AFP.

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