主题：中国的政治风险 -- 风烟滚滚来天半

Military is part of society, no matter how much "patriotic education" one receives, each and every individual soldier/sailor/airman all has their own brain and their own perspective, they see everything you see in the society and like you, they probably feel hopeful every time they see the good side of China, disillusioned every time they see the dark side of the China. Don't think they are mindless droids who only know to follow orders.

As for the whole political risk thing, I honestly don't even know how to form my own opinion, the government can bash all of its critics as pawns of western imperialists all they want, but we all know the problem China has and how greedy some of the special interest groups are. The fact that over the past decade, the government has become much more aggressive in term of doing whatever it can, no matter how ridiculous it sounds, to stamp out even the faintest hint of criticism, proves that the government itself is far from being as optimistic about the future as many HKCs are. (frankly speaking, every time I see the government launches yet another campaign to "purify" the interest,

I feel like being kicked on my crotch, I can and did defend China on a lot of issues, but I can't honestly tell anybody that such spineless policies ain't something that only a government seriously scared of its own people can come up with. I don't like Western media's grotesque campaign of misinformation when it comes to China, but on this particular matter, I can't help but agreeing with their assessment: this is not an sign of strength, this is an sign of weakness, and an sign of lack of confidence on doing what's needed to be done to rectify the situation.)

I don't know what China would be like 50 years from now, I don't know if the current China would survive as opposed to crumbling into pieces like Soviet Union did 50 years from now. I hope not, but I can't force myself to share the optimism, after all, I'm not even sure the current crop of leadership gets what it takes to do what Deng Xiaoping and Li Peng did back in 89, the military can be as loyal as it can, but unless somebody has the authority and the ball to do, you know, what's necessary when faced with massive social unrest, all the shiny tanks, missiles, rifles won't mean squat. The Red Army of 1991, even today, is still years ahead of PLA of 2009 as far as I know, and as far as I know, the military itself was still quite supportive of the preservation of Soviet Union. But does it matter? Obviously not much. In an system in which the military is firmly under the leadership of civilian government, The military is only as useful as the civilian government wants it to be. As evidenced by the events of 91, it's entirely possible that even the biggest beneficiaries (the coup plotters include vice president, head of KGB, defense minister, you can't say they weren't part of the system, you can't say they had no incentive to defend the system, yet they still flinched.)of status quo could hesitate in the face of massive social opposition. In 89, Deng Xiaoping got it, I don't think government of 09 got it.

One popular explanation to the seemly inexplicable question regarding how a country as powerful as Soviet Union could collapse overnight is "if nobody were willing to kill for the system, it means the system is a goner". I don't think China can repeat what happened in 89, I sincerely hope China would not be forced to make similar choice in the future, but when pushed to the brink, only "decisive" action, you all know what "decisive" here means, could restore order. Judging by what happened in Sinjiang (against a bunch of cold-blooded killers who were armed with the most rudimentary weapon and who were overwhelmingly hated by the vast majority of the population, yet the reaction from this seemly "authoritarian" government was tepid, even shy, do you think the reaction would be really that different if Beijing were filled with another million, you know...?), I'm not optimistic. Now I only hope that the increasing professionalism of the bureaucracy and the momentum of Chinese industrialization could compensate the lack of political will, in another word, I hope the government could be smart enough to not push the public off the brink at the very least, and competent enough to actually increase the stake average people have in the system so that they don't have to go to the extreme.

To sum it up, there is hope, there is risk, I don't think anybody can make a convincing case either for or against the possibility of social unrest large enough to derail the whole process of industrialization. Nobody has crystal ball. However, IF China were really unfortunate to have to relive the whole 89 experience again, personally, I'd not bet my money on China emerging out of it unscathed....