Hu’s Recent Crackdown on Political Dissent – Willy Lam
From The Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief:
President Hu Jintao has redoubled efforts to crack down on dissent and other destabilizing forces despite the decreased frequency of large-scale anti-government riots after a spate of serious outbreaks last winter. In internal deliberations, both Hu and his predecessor, ex-president Jiang Zemin, have cited Chairman Mao Zedong’s classic dictum, “A spark from heaven can light up an entire plain.” This is a reference to the fact that one single instance of insurrection, unless muffled quickly at the source, could spread across the country and wreak havoc on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) administration. And Jiang, who now spends most of his time in Shanghai, reportedly convinced his successor that it was still imperative to abide by late patriarch Deng Xiaoping’s teaching about “maintaining stability being the party’s overriding task.”
