(Reuters Breakingviews) - It may all make sense to Xi Jinping. For the Chinese l...
LONDON - It may all make sense to Xi Jinping. For the Chinese leader, dissent, as seen in the Hong Kong protests, leads to disorder. Disorder could damage economic growth, undermine the government and end in disaster. The 19th century Taiping rebellion, as an extreme example, killed about 5% of the Chinese population. Thus, Xi might reason, firm repression is the only way forward.
The central government’s response has been unequivocal in both peripheral regions. Whatever the cause or the cost, the dissent must be crushed. In Xinjiang, the government has built a hyper-modern police state, where United Nations experts and activists estimate as many as 1 million Uighurs and other ethnic Muslims have been detained in camps and where a sophisticated artificial intelligence network keeps watch over the non-incarcerated.
Even so, the goal of the ruling Chinese Communist Party is not to make people poorer. Xi probably wants to avoid gratuitous violence. Four decades of turgid pronouncements show a simple vision: good policies from the central government produce a unified people, along with a prosperous, contented and loyal nation.
Since then, the economy has thrived. Growth is slowing, but the International Monetary Fund expects real GDP to increase by 6% this year, enough to boost almost everyone’s standard of living. Also, the state continues to use its tremendous economic power in citizen-friendly ways, such as reducing pollution and building up a modern healthcare system.
Supreme leaders who demand adulation are always fearful, because they realise that no one is sincere in their praise. When faced with dissent, they tend to become arrogant, because they half-believe their own propaganda. They therefore over-control, overreach and overreact, magnifying the rebellious discontent they were trying to squelch.
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