Beijing buckled. The CCTV cameras surround Tiananmen Square, where the red flags, adorned with their five yellow stars, float in the wind, as D-Day arrives. For several days, the Chinese capital has been replaced by the rehearsals of the military parade. must show the greatness of the country, and the deterrent force of Chinese power, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the regime. Further on, on the facade of the Forbidden City is still and always the portrait of Mao Zedong, whose presence is more than ever appropriate.
Seventy years ago, the so-called "Great Helmsman" proclaimed the People's Republic of China, marking the entry of the country into a communist regime, led by a single party, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Today very different from the rural country conquered seven decades ago by the Communists, the People's Republic of China has established itself as a leading economic power.
The Chinese regime is "a regime inherited from Marxism sauce Mao" says Jean-Vincent Brisset, director of research at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (Iris), contacted by France 24. "The way of governing and how to manage the society is born of the communist regimes, but the way to manage the international relations has nothing to do with the theoretical communism ", he continues, introducing the idea that the authoritarian regime in China represents the main obstacle to an opening complete country on the world.
According to the researcher, in fact, China's 70-year history has only swung between repeated openings and closings, with the country now in a state of closure since Xi Jinping came to power. in 2013.
Opening the economy, locking the regime
Having come to power on October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong had a long chaotic reign. The "Great Leap Forward", in 1958, aimed to catch up and go beyond the USSR by mobilizing farmers to industrialize the countryside, but led to the disruption of agricultural structures and the collapse of the Chinese economy, causing a famine that has decimated tens of millions of people.
Eight years later, the "Cultural Revolution" did little better. A true ideological cleansing program aimed at purging the CCP of its elite and bourgeois elements through the "Red Guards", it produces a climate of terror, makes at least hundreds of thousands, even millions of victims in 10 years, and undermines the country's economy.
When Mao died in 1976, China is a diplomatic and military power, but it is still very weak economically. China's GDP per capita is only $ 165. In 2017, it amounts to 8 827 dollars, China enthroned behind the United States, in second place of the world's largest economic powers.
President since 2013, Xi Jinping, China's new strongman, is embarking on a projection of the country to the outside, notably by launching the gigantic and controversial project of the "new silk roads". Inside, he returns to a rigorous control of Chinese society and strengthens his personal power. The state media is developing a personality cult around him and Parliament amends the Constitution to allow him to remain president for life.
"China has reopened after Tiananmen [demonstrations of students, workers and intellectuals prodemocracy violently repressed by the army in 1989, Ed], because it has been contaminated by modernity, social networks and by the will leaders not to close everything "explains Jean-Vincent Brisset. "This reopening took place in the years 1990-2000, before we witness a new closure since Xi Jinping," he said, saying that the current Chinese leaders are, as were those of the time of Mao, obsessed with "the penetration of bad ideas from the outside."
"The world can not live without China"
China emerged from diplomatic isolation in 1971, thanks to a change of strategy under the leadership of its prime minister, Zhou Enlai. She then landed for good on the international stage and conquered the United Nations, of which she became a permanent member of the Security Council.
Seven years later, Mao's successor, Deng Xiaoping, made her switch to a socialist market economy. China can finally exist in the system of globalization. Better, it quickly becomes indispensable to the other powers, making them charm with its large workforce and low cost.
This argument of weight is used, even today, while the United States of Donald Trump regularly brandish the threat of taxing Chinese products. "When we want to tax products coming from China, we risk producing inflation because it is it that keeps consumer goods at extremely low prices," says Jean-Vincent Brisset.
"China has become the world's second largest power in many areas," he said. "Until twenty years ago, it could do anything, including collapse, the world would not have been affected, today the world needs China, it can not not live without China. "
Full opening would compromise the established balance
After catching up and making itself attractive for foreign capital, especially in Shanghai, which is attracting ever more modern economic activities, China plays, to this day, a leading role in international economic institutions. In the space of twenty years, it has become the main trading partner of many countries, is now investing in Africa and is even embarking on space exploration.
Beyond the overused expression of "World Workshop", China has become the provider of the world, and sometimes even its creditor.
A "Chinese miracle" which, according to Jean-Vincent Brisset, was done primarily to the detriment of the people. "We are completely liberalizing and accepting to have something very brilliant by making people pay for it extremely hard for a very long time."
Economic "miracles", Taiwan, South Korea and Japan also achieved after the Second World War. But unlike China, says the researcher, "these three countries have developed in a democratic, almost Western-style." China, "has chosen a path of development behind an extremely authoritarian regime and a coping of its population." According to him, the Chinese authoritarian regime is the obstacle to its total opening up to the world.
What risk would it have to lift this brake? His balance, says the specialist. According to him, "if China gets out of this authoritarian regime", with all that that implies in terms of organization of work, infrastructure, capital movements and investments, "it collapses."