The call to growth does not mean the end

“No one can stop the wheel of history,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said on the 75th anniversary of the day the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China. And the wheel does indeed continue to turn, but this is perhaps not good news for the fourth generation of heirs of this revolution.

The 1950s were the height of communism, when people still feared or hoped that it would spread across the entire world.

However, this was never likely and, apart from Cuba and Vietnam, it never became more widespread. The Soviet Union itself finally evaporated peacefully in 1991, at the age of 74, taking the rest of Europe's communist regimes with it.

At that time, China suddenly became the world's oldest communist state, which had the same psychological impact on the CCP as losing its own parents to the middle generation.

Suddenly your own generation is on the front line, and personal extinction awaits you later.

The Chinese were 42 in 1991, of course, but an icy wind began to blow when party members realized that communist regimes could also be deadly.

Since then, avoiding the fate of the Soviet Union has become the unwritten subtext of almost every major political decision made by the CCP regime.

Inevitably, there were competing solutions as to how best to avoid this fate.

By the mid-1990s, two dominant strategies had emerged, adopted by two rival factions: the “princes”, who were the children and grandchildren of the founding revolutionary heroes, and the “populists”, who had risen through merit. .

Most populists had grown up in poverty somewhere in the country's vast interior and were aware of the needs of vulnerable social groups like farmers, migrant workers, and the urban poor.

Their formula for surviving the Soviet Union was a more generous welfare state, more open media, and more democracy within the party.

Most of them came from the Communist Youth League and were known in Chinese as tuanpai (the League faction).

Princes, on the other hand, were born into privilege and easily rose through the ranks of the ruling party as they grew up.

They generally took a more authoritarian and centralizing approach to politics, and they regularly pointed out that it was Mikhail Gorbachev's attempt to “reform” the Soviet Communist Party that precipitated its downfall.

However, in the 1990s and 2000s, the Chinese economy was still growing very rapidly and the choice between competing strategies could easily be postponed. For nearly three decades, the two factions carefully shared power and never attacked each other in public.

But then the economic miracle ran out of steam.

There was really nothing miraculous about China's 30 years of rapid growth (10% per year).

Most industrialized economies benefit from this one-time growth bonus as rural populations migrate to cities and provide emerging industries with almost unlimited cheap labor.

Britain had it in 1850-80, the United States in 1870-1900, Russia in 1920-40 (interrupted by World War II), and Japan in 1950-80. It never lasts, and China's time was up in 2015.

Since then, Beijing has been rigging the accounts to maintain the claim of a growth rate of at least 5%, but the actual growth rate is 2-3% at best and likely negative growth during the years of lockdown.

The glory days are over and the question of how to avoid the fate of the Soviet Union must be faced squarely.

This is why the truce between the princes and the populists was broken in 2012-2015, when Xi Jinping, the ultimate prince, took over all the main functions of the state: president of the People's Republic of China, general secretary of the CPC and Chairman of the Central Military Commission.

It’s decided: the future is authoritarian.

There is no surprise there. The princes have always been a more cohesive faction, and “reform” is seen by most Chinese communists as the gateway to oblivion.

The question is whether repression can be an effective long-term strategy, especially when the economy is no longer growing rapidly and the population is declining.

We can't really estimate the likely longevity of the type of high-tech total surveillance state that Xi is building in China now, because it is something new in history.

It's more ambitious than any previous experiment in controlling human behavior, and if it works, the diet could prove immortal.

On the other hand, you only have to write this sentence to realize how implausible it is.

The Hundred Ancient Names defeated a dozen other dynasties and countless invaders; they're probably not finished yet.

Gwynne Dyer is a freelance journalist from London.