The guys is almost 80 73, he’s an old man.
He’s been very successful in his tenure, carried out great anti-corruption campaigns, overseen a pivot to green energy, helmed China as it has retaken its place in the sun.
At the same time there’s a lot of foreign policy stuff that leaves some wanting. There’s still cliques of liberals (as far as I understand, which is very little, which is why I ask) that are working towards something very different (I hear Shanghai is really bad?) not to mention some impending economic doom, according to some China posters here.
Whatever the case is, Xi has been monumental and at the forefront of a great wave of change. One must Imagine he has planned for his retirement, moved things around to ensure some of His Guys are in good positions to take over.
Or maybe not?
So what happens when he goes away? Who is likely to take his spot? What will happen on the world stage?
I wish I could believe everything will be alright, but it’s hard to be optimistic after seeing revolutions back slide before. After all, the USSR wasn’t some dictatorship either, and Stalin also did a lot of purging and rearranging too, and look at what ended up with that place.
The USSR was a massive success story. I wish people wouldn’t focus so much on its end. Nothing lasts forever and the USSR was the most important socialist project thus far in history. Look at the world today. Do you not see the shadow of the USSR? Had the USSR not been around the US would have reshaped the entire world. The regions where the USSR managed to keep it at bay are now the very regions the US’s empire is beginning to fall apart. Yes, what happened in 1991 was a tragedy, but that does not take away what it did prior to that. In less than a century the USSR stopped Nazi Germany, put the first man in space, acted as counterbalance to prevent complete and total US hegemony over the world, sheltered multiple socialist projects in their infancy, and so much more. It burned bright and quickly but its effect on history will be felt until the very end of mankind.
Will China last 200 more years? 500? Who can say? But I can confidently say that its impact on history will survive.
This is a much better way to look at it. I appreciate the perspective, comrade.
The USSR is the only known society to lose around 20% of it’s population (and generally speaking these were the most hard core communists) over the course of almost 40 years of continuous warfare (with a small break during the late 30’s), lose most of its major pre-war infrastructure, and somehow not slip backwards into a feudal state of being, while competing with, and in some areas, technologically surpassing, a global hegemon who sacrificed far less, and sacrificed none of their infrastructure.
To some degree it is a modern miracle (more of a testament to Marxist theory) it even existed at all, and for as long as it did. And if they had been able to last until the age of the internet, they likely would be where China is now. However, it was clearly too much pressure on too fragile a socialist experiment, and as a result their progression in history has mostly stalled, doomed to be either a gas station for Europe or a boogeyman for NATO. Not a backwater, but the amount of rotting infrastructure in the former USSR really demonstrates how completely ineffective capitalism is at actually serving regular people.
It is a great example at least, when you compare the before and after.