color revolution

Major Reasons of the Color Revolution in China

20081230

Introduction

In February 2011, activists conduced assemblies in China’ s thirteen cities calling on western-style democracy with Jasmine as their symbol, which goes by the name of China Jasmine Revolution and has been identified as the color revolution in China. Though ending in a failure, it has aroused substantial attention and discussion from all walks of life in China, especially the government circles and sociologists.

According to Wikipedia “color revolution” is a term used by the media to describe related movements that developed in several societies in the CIS (former USSR) and Balkan states which are mainly Mid-East countries during the early 2000s. And in early 2011, the Mid-East countries are caught in the escalating wave of color revolution. In fact, color revolution is not a new issue in China’s society as well it has begun to boarder on the stage of China about 100 years ago. On 26th November,2004, the Guardian said the 8﹒9 Student Movement in 1989 was the first formal dress rehearsal of color revolution in China. The Charter 08 was likely to be a programmatic document of a potential color revolution if not controlled. And the 3﹒14 Incident in 2008 and the 7﹒5 Event in 2009 are essentially supposed as color revolutions. However, what cause them? The specific reasons will be analyzed from international level and domestic level.

From the international level.

To begin with, foreign color revolutions are the direct reason. Some activists make external propagandas about their ideas through Internet or other me dia. And to an extent, color revolutions in Middle-East set examples. Some ideas of China Jasmine Revolution are seriously influenced by the incitement or directly introduced from the outside world.

Second, the intervention from western countries led by the United States plays a driving role in this issue. For one thing, the conflict between socialism and the

capitalism is a longstanding problem. The development of China is thought to bring great pressure to the capitalist countries so that they attempt to set different obstacles on the road to China’s prosperity. And suppo rting behaviors of damaging China’ stability is one reflection. Taking the Liu Xiaobo Incident as an illustration, Nobel Committee that awarded the Peace Prize to the jailed dissident Liu Xioabo represents those in the West who believe a color revolution such as those that took place in Eastern Europe would lead China down the path of Western-style liberal democracy. Liu is the chief drafter of Charter 08 which incites the subversion of the state. For another, the peaceful evolution policy is the United States’ consistent policy to the socialist nations. In the implement of the policy, the US make cultural penetrations such as movies, exchange of research projects and some political talks. Around 3﹒14 Event, the US president Obama met Dalai Lama, which Chinese government strongly condemned. Actually, that is an embodiment of the US’s peaceful evolution policy in China.

From the domestic level.

First, the particularity of China’s social system means china will meet considerable challenges from the international community. China is socialist nation and the strongest one of only five socialist nations in the world. And socialism is essentially in antagonism with the capitalism. Since reform and opening, China has been developing rapidly, which is supposed by some western countries to pose grave threat to capitalist society. Then China threat theory emerges which lays international environment for some color revolution.

Second, severe social problems are the main reasons. First of all, serious imbalance in wealth distribution. The enlargement of the gap between the rich and the poor make the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. People’s livelihood has not been improved for a long time so that some people are easy to participate in some activities that claim to fight for more reasonable democracy. Then, the imbalance in the economic construction and spiritual civilization. In today’s China,

the government is developing centering on economy. But some places pursue the economic growth as an end in itself so that they focus too much on profits. At the same time many people become blundering and spiritually barren. This results in the lack of faith. When faced with incitement, they are easy to change their standpoint and even some give up their belief for some economic profits and join the so-called revolution. Moreover, corruption. Bribery and corruption are two major poisons to ruin the social atmosphere and social equality. For a long time, the blowing up of some movements like color revolution seem to be inevitable.

Certainly there are also some other reasons referring to religion, history and the low-level of Chinese legal system. In a word, as a special rising nation, China is meeting with numerous challenges from in and abroad. However, I suppose that color revolution creates an opportunity for China to make self-examinations and discover the problems, which should be the first step to success. China must confronts the problems properly, and take comprehensive measures for example, utilizing the superiority of socialism, devoting more to education to improve national quality, boosting the economy promote people’s livelihood. I believe it is nature for a new nation to meet so man y problems and to realize China’s real prosperity is just a matter of time.