TIME TO GET OUT OF HISTORY

Once economic modernization is completed, all communist regimes have to face up to their lack of legitimacy. The Chinese communist regime is no exception. Taking into account the recent history of communist regimes worldwide, China's current leadership will soon have to make a choice between 2 options. The first is the one Gorbachev chose in 1991. The second is the one that Ceausescu opted for in December 1989. Unfortunately, there is no third option available.

One of Lucian Blaga's brilliant remarks - which referred to the period in which there is an absence of data on the Romanian people in medieval European historiography - is that Romanians "went out of history to remain in history."

Nowadays, I would apply Blagian thinking to the impossible situation currently facing the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party. For several years now, the latter have been making furious plans aimed at perpetuating the unbroken political monopoly they have held  since 1949.

Like the USSR communists in the interwar period, the Chinese Communists succeeded in the economic modernisation of China, which in a few decades was transformed from a poor agrarian nation into a strong and prosperous industrial nation.

However, Chinese leaders - like Ceausescu before them - believe that they can stay in power forever with the help of electronic means of mass surveillance or by putting tanks in the streets. They do not seem to understand that the only way to secure a prestigious role in Chinese history is to voluntarily relinquish power - yes, as Gorbachev did - and to allow other political forces to take over and continue China's institutional and political modernization. In other words, to go out of history in order to remain in history.

Any communist society, no matter how economically  or militarily advanced, suffers from a major flaw in the logic of its governing program. When communist governing programs reach this point - like China today or  the USSR in the 1980's - the system goes haywire. The solution chosen by the Chinese leaders - that of strengthening political repression and mass surveillance of the population - only aggravates the situation.

Of course, China's problem is  not the system's lack of economic performance, as in the case of the USSR. However, China urgently needs the demonopolization of its political system, even a controlled one,  as well as numerous institutional and legal reforms that would guarantee, not violate, the fundamental rights of Chinese citizens in their relations with the state.

In conclusion, a minimum of political intelligence should prompt the current Chinese leaders to leave power now, while they are still on top. The growing complexity of the problems facing the Chinese society today imposes this. The intensification of the Marxist education of the population and of the repression and surveillance of citizens are only pseudo-solutions, totally inadequate for this moment in history.

Unfortunately,  the Chinese communist leaders do not seem to be able to understand a simple fact, namely  that their historical role has ended and that  time has come to "get out of history in order to remain in history", since their governing program no longer meets  the needs of Chinese society and has even become toxic.