Third Revolution Rising: Breaking Free from Emperors, Dictators, and Dragons| Digging into China

Hi, I'm Dong Shong. Welcome to Digging into China, where we explore China in depths to review unique perspectives. Today, I'm continuing from last episode's content. China's modern and contemporary revolutionary process shares similarities with the French Revolution. By borrowing the framework of the French Revolution, we can divide China's history over the past century into three stages. the first stage, the period of enlightenment and resistance corresponding to China's lateqing dynasty to republican era. This alliance with the early phase of the French Revolution in 1789 when enlightenment ideas spread and the moderate reforms took place in China from the late 19th century 100 days reform and the lateqing new policies to the Shanghai revolution overthrowing the monarchy and then the brief attempt at republican governance. This series of events reflected the impact of enlightenmental thought on the old system and the people's aspirations for freedom and a national independence. Just as France's constitutional monarchist and Shi Hong Dong once strove to advance reforms within the old institutional framework. China's constitutionalists and revolutionaries also hoped to achieve constitutional monarchy or democratic republicanism. But this stage was often incomplete. France's 1791 constitution hadn't stabilized before it faced royalist rebellions and foreign interventions. Similarly, China's Republican ideals after the Shanghai revolution quickly shattered amid warlord infighting. So the enlightenment and resistance period left unfinished task in both countries. The second stage, the Jaccoing radical period corresponding to China's Maong era. In France from 1793 to 1794, the Jaccoins reign of terror shared many similarities with mouse authoritarian rule in China from 1949 to 1976. Both were guided by extreme revolutionary theories raising the banners of the people and virtue and launching massive purges and terror internally. In France, this was Robis Pier Galadin and the Levie on Mass. In China, it was mouse class struggle campaigns and the cultural revolution catastrophe. Both caused societal upheaval and immense sacrifices and both ended with the leaders downfall or death. Robis Pierre toppled by the Thermodidorian reaction. After Ma's death, his political legacy was almost entirely repudiated. This radical period left the nation with wounds and the lessons failing to establish a free institutions politically. Third, the Napoleonic order period corresponding to China's reform and opening era up to Shiinping period in France from Lapon's rise to power in 1799 to uh 1815 at Waterloo. It was a compromise face that both ended the terror and it restored elements of the old order. Napoleon preserved some revolutionary achievements like the Napoleonic code and administrative reforms but rebuilt the emperorship and centralized rule. China since 1978 reform and opening up to today has similarly entered a period where the revolutionary fer cools and order is rebuilt. Dang Xiaoing and his successors were like collective Chinese Napoleon. They ended the Mauist fanaticism, promoted economic development and a partial social opening but politically maintained imperial core of one party autocracy especially after she came to power. This Napoleonic style centralization has only intensified even surpassing previous levels. France's Napoleonic period ended with the bourbon restoration signaling a major reactionary turn in the revolution. China's present day is also undergoing a stage of new autocratic restoration. But we also know that the French Revolution didn't end there. After the Bourban restoration, revolutionary waves still surged in 1830 and 1848, ultimately establishing the republic. History's pendulum always advances through its swings. One of the lessons from the French Revolution is the self negation and evolution of revolutionary violence. After experiencing the Jacobin's reign of terror, the French people grew weary of endless repression and purges. So after the theidorian reaction, they began to reflect, pursuing rule of law and the protections for power. Although Napoleon crowned himself emperor, he didn't repraise the terror. Instead, he established the order and advanced the rule of law. This can be seen as a violence self negation. The revolution recognized that unrelenting violent purges couldn't build a lasting new order. So, it turned toward the legal and institutional construction. In contrast, China has yet to truly emerge from the stage where violence is legitimized. The political violence of the Mao era was partially repudiated by later leaders. For example, during the reform period, wrongful convictions were rehabilitated, but the nation's infatuation with violence and a dictatorship persists. Dang Xiaoing likewise insisted that the power grows out of the barrel of a gun and in 1989 he restored to military force to suppress the democratic movement. In the she era there is even more overt emphasis on upholding the party's comprehensive dictatorship strengthening the state's machinery of violence. China's revolution has yet to experience the French style escape from terror turning toward the rule of law and the republicanism after the French terror. Instead, after Ma's terror, China merely entered another form of high pressure order without truly establishing constitutionalism or rule of law. The shadow of the Jacco beans lingers inescapably in China. That is rulers still follow a logic of acting in the name of the people while wielding real power. Mao constantly spoke of the people's state as the people's mountain and the rivers. But what he built was a party world. Today CCP still waves the banner of the people's interest yet refuses the people's right to freely choose their leaders. This jackobing style political deception is why China struggles to break the cycle of violent autocracy. Only when violence is no longer seen as a legitimate means to maintain order and solve problems truly giving way to law and a democratic process can China's revolution be said to have crossed the shadow of terror. Fortunately, France accomplished this crossing in just a few years. Unfortunately, this process in China has already been delayed by decades. Why has China's revolution skipped its bourgeoa stage? Traditional revolutionary theory holds that for a country to achieve democratic republicanism, it must first undergo a bourgeoa le democratic revolution to cultivate an independent civil society and a private property class. Yet, China's uniqueness lies in how this bourgeoa stage seemed to have been greatly compressed or even skipped by history. After the Shanghai revolution, there was a brief sprouting of national bourgeoa and parliamentary politics, but it faced triple blows in succession, warlord chaos, foreign invasions, and communist colonization, which successfully destroyed these tender shoots. After the CCP established its regime in 1949, it immediately launched the socialist transformation, thoroughly stripping the bourgeoa of its economic base and making the independent industrial and commercial class vanish entirely. In the first 30 years of CCP rule, there were no private enterprises or free markets at all. So naturally, there was no independent middle class force to call for democracy. After the reforms and opening up, private enterprises and wealth reemerged, but the party's control over society strengthened in tandem. Many private entrepreneurs who were absorbed into the system and the red second generation and official second generation themselves become new capitalist tycoons. As a result, while China has seen the reappearance of wealthy strata, it hasn't formed an independent bourgeoa or civil society camp. Unlike most countries, a considerable portion of China's middle class depends on and is controlled by the system that is civil servants and those within the system which makes China's middle class ills suited to become the social foundation for pushing democracy. China's bourgeoa has either been integrated or eliminated, greatly weakening the social foundation for peaceful evolution. Even more so, the CCP has demonized the western liberal de democratic values in its propaganda, leading many people to misunderstand democracy as a synonyms with chaos. All of this has institutionally dissolved the social foundation for China's democratic revolution. Looking at the French history in the 18th and 19th century amid multiple cycles of back and forth, the industrial and the commercial bourgeoa and the free professionals become the backbone forces for democratic republicanism. But in China, due to the twists of historical process and the ruling parties strategies, such independent social forces have always developed poorly, even been strangled. Therefore, while China's modernization has reached the 21st century levels in technology and material terms, in personality, cultivation, and a civil society building, it still hasn't completed the task that the Western nations accomplished in the 18th and the 19th century. China's revolution over the past century though it changed the dynasties and economic landscape has yet to achieve the revolution's fundamental goal. So what is that fundamental goal? It can be summarized as a dual revolution of institutions and personality. The institution revolution means replacing traditional autocratic rule by man authority with modern democratic legal institutions. The personality revolution means turning submissive subjects into citizens, cultivating a modern national character of independent thinking and a courageous responsibility. Looking back at history, whether the Shanghai revolutionaries, the May 4th pioneers, or later the 1989 democracy fighters, they were all striving for change on these two levels, establishing a republic and ruling by constitution while also enlightening the populace and shaping new citizens. Unfortunately, various internal and external interferences have delayed the full realization of this grand vision. Mere change in political form without the personality awakening is unstable. Conversely, improving public morals without institutional safeguards is also fragile. The reason China's great revolution is said to have only just begun is precisely because these two most difficult and important revolutions have not yet fully succeeded. The Chinese people overthrew the emperor in the past but failed to establish a constitutional system that truly and effectively limits power. The Chinese people shouted democratic slogans in the past but failed to transform every ordinary person from a subject into a selfaware citizen. Therefore, the future revolution must advance on dual tracks, both institutional change and an awakening of the human spirit, replacing authority with institutions, subjects with citizens. Modern political philosophy tells us that a good society needs two major pillars. First, sound institutions. Second, mature citizens. Sound institutions, for example, representative democracy, judicial independent, separation of power, can prevent power abuse, and ensure social fairness and justice. Mature citizens mean that the majority possess qualities of rationality, independence, law abidedness, tolerance, and a pluralism enabling them to properly exercise their freedoms and the rights. What China lacks right now are these two things. No true institutions to constrain power and a populist long conditioned to passive dependence on power. The true great revolution should take this as its direction. Replacing personal authoritarian rule with the democratic legal institutions and the subject like a dependence with modern citizen consciousness. This will be a revolution deeper than toppling a party or leader. It requires a shifts in concepts, cultural transformations and the rebuilding of specific institutional arrangements. In a sense, this isn't a bloody revolution, but more like a national spiritual rebirth and a restructuring of a state structures. Its difficulty is no less than any political revolution because it demands changing deeply ingrained habits and thought patterns. After experiencing the Shanghai political revolution that toppled the monarchy and the CCP's social revolution that changed ownership and the social structures, China needs to usher in a third stage revolution from external violence to internal self-awareness, a higher level revolution in human history. When more and more Chinese begin to ponder why we can't choose our own leaders, why are we fed the lies? Why are we always gripped by fear? When these questions become collective consciousness and transform into peaceful yet resolute action, China will truly enter the climax of the great revolution. When the people no longer beg for benefits, no longer believes in saviors, that's when the revolution truly begins. This echoes the communist international's lyrics. There has never been any savior. The power lies in our own hands. So-called self-revolution is also a slogan the ruling party once shouted. Except what they mean is not at all what the people pursue. Once upon a time, the Chinese pinned hopes on one enlightened leader after another. Now more and more people recognize that no emperor will grant the people freedom. Only the people themselves can win freedom. So this third stage revolution is destined to be driven by ordinary people. Enlightenment and awakening. This is a revolution to escape the historical fate where the boy who slays the dragon eventually becomes the dragon himself. Not relying on violence to slay the dragon, but making sure no one worships the dragon anymore, depriving the dragon of the soil it needs to exist. Only then can China avoid the past cycle of toppling one emperor only for another to emerge, driving out one dictator only for another to pop up. China's three major transformations in modern contemporary times each had their historical missions and limitations. The Shanghai Revolution accomplished a formal revolution. It ended the national form of the monarchy, embedding the republican ideal deep in people's hearts. This was a distinction in form. But Shanghai didn't establish stable new institutions and the political culture didn't change accordingly. So it was merely the first step on a long march. The CCP's establishment of power accomplished a power revolution. It thoroughly seized the state power from the old ruling groups and carried out extensive social transformations. This revolution didn't bring freedom and a democracy either. Instead, it established a new centralized power system. So, it was merely a shift from one autocracy to another, not true modernization in the full sense. The future democratic revolution will transcend the previous dynastic changes and ideological struggles. Only this third revolution can truly complete China's grand pursuit of modern civilization since the lateqing dynasty. It can be said that the Shingai campaign changed its form, the CCP campaign changed its power and the future campaign should change its soul. Form is the external shape of the polity. Power is the ruling subject and the soul is the national spirit. Under the she's rule, China's high centralization and a personal dictatorship seem to have dragged China back to the political form of the imperial era. But this is absolutely not history's end point. It may very well be the final agony before a civilizational returning point. Every resurgence of autocracy often foreshadows the arrival of the next revolution. History's pattern are often like this. The darkest night gives birth to the most brilliant dawn. After the Shanghai revolution toppled the monarchy, it is still went through the chaos of warlord fragmentation before welcoming the new voice of national independence. The French Revolution too after Napoleon's dictatorship went through ups and downs before settling into republicanism. For China, the Shi era's restoration is more like a counter current in the long river of revolution. The perils of the counterurren undoubtedly delay the voyage. Yet, they also ignite an even stronger thirst for the sources living waters. On the surface, China today appears prosperous and celebratory, but the beneath lurks surging undercurrents. Discussions of constitutional democracy among the populace, although suppressed, have never ceased. Resentment against the corruption and injustice among the common people is everywhere visible in the social media age. It can be foreseen that the true great revolution will arrive in some way no one expects. Thank you so much for watching. If you find this video helpful, please like it, drop a comment below, and hit the subscribe button right here. It really helps YouTube suggest my video to others. I'll be back with more content soon. Until then, be