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By Root 1287 0

two different kinds of “stability” are that, in his view, “when judging stability in Taiwan the criterion” is “whether or not the situation will influence the stability of the law,” while the standard for judging stability on the mainland is mainly “whether or not the situation will influence the stability of the Chinese Communist Party regime … In order to consolidate its regime, the Chinese Communist Party views every action that might remove their pressure on the people to be a destabilizing element … In order to eliminate all the destabilizing elements, the Chinese Communist Party then continuously practices suppression, i.e., takes suppression for stability … I believe that the core belief of the Chinese Communist Party is not economic development. There is only one goal of everything it does: the exclusiveness of its political power. Without realizing this, one cannot really understand the Chinese Communist Party … It has long since become a party without belief, a party of pragmatism. The only thing that will influence it is the pressure of reality.”

The only vision the Chinese Communist Party has is the overall vision of coming world hegemony, related in The Fat Years through He Dongsheng’s lengthy monologue. Some readers may regard this as a tedious “soap box monologue” lacking in drama, but they would be mistaken. Most liberal ethnic-Chinese scholars living in China and abroad regard the last section of the work as very dramatic and the most important part of the book. Important both in He Dongsheng’s manner of delivery, and in the content of his monologue.

The way He Dongsheng talks to, or rather lectures at, his kidnappers is exactly the way the Party leadership talks to the 1.3 billion Chinese. It is how “President” Hu Jintao addresses the ordinary people, while Premier Wen Jiabao seems to have tried to imitate the so-called populism of Mao’s behind-the-scenes hatchet man Zhou Enlai (a performance that has been criticized by the dissident Yu Jie, in a book published this year in Hong Kong). Several Chinese intellectuals and reporters from the popular liberal paper Southern Weekly (itself mentioned in the novel) who visited Taiwan in November 2010 witnessed the way President Ma Ying-jeou interacted with the ordinary people and with other officials. Then they publicly lamented the fact that no dialogue of that sort could possibly take place in the People’s Republic.

Reality has already caught up with He Dongsheng’s monologue, and many of the plans he describes have already been fulfilled, especially China’s buying up of much of the world’s natural resources to fuel its economic behemoth. Everything else, except for the genuine fantasy of an alliance with Japan, is in preparation or in progress. All these plans are intended to fulfill the goals of a China that its leaders and many of its people believe is in ascendance and destined to become the main power in the world.

This idea that the U.S.-led West is suffering an unstoppable decline while China is enjoying an unstoppable rise is why in 2010 Chinese foreign policy became exceedingly aggressive and, as a result, China antagonized much of the world and drove all its neighbors either to increase their defense budgets or seek a rapprochement with the United States for protection. As political commentator Stephen Hill points out, “Beyond economic and ecological indicators, the hallmark of a great power is when other nations want to emulate you … But no one is banging down doors to get into China, and only the poorest countries aim to be like the People’s Republic.” Some nonpolitical Chinese scholars do return to China to work, even after obtaining their getaway pass in the form of permanent residency or citizenship in the United States or some other democratic country; while most of the poor nations that want to follow the Beijing model of development are ruled by unscrupulous dictators out for the main chance.

Further evidence of the realism and relevance of this novel has just appeared. As I write these pages, two autocratic regimes have fallen in the Middle