November 13, 2012
China's political leaders put stability above all else. So it's a remarkable sign of the times that they could be passing around well-thumbed copies of a book about the sudden, bloody outbreak of the French Revolution two-and-a-quarter centuries ago. Why would China's modern rulers, preoccupied with the leadership handover under way in Beijing this week, be interested in Alexis de Tocqueville's The Old Regime and the French Revolution? They are ''fascinated by the French thinker's writings because of what his observations say about conditions in their times,'' says a visiting professor at China's Sun Yat-sen University, Nailene Chou Wiest.
Since the Communist Party seized power in 1949 in a violent revolution, its highest priority has been to guard against what it calls ''counter-revolution''......''In all likelihood, these leaders sense, either instinctively or intellectually, an impending crisis that could imperil the Chinese Communist Party's survival in the same way that the French Revolution ended Bourbon rule,'' writes a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in the US, Minxin Pei. ''Telltale signs of anxiety are already visible. Capital flight from China is now at a record high. Polls of China's dollar millionaires reveal that half of them want to emigrate. ''It is safe to say that China's next leader knows that the Celestial Kingdom is becoming unsettled.'' To Read More.....
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