Communist/Socialist Regimes As Ethnic-Conflict-Prevention Institutions: What Do We Have to Keep in Mind the Most When We Consider East and Southeast Asian Security?

Abstract

In reality, what are communist/socialist regimes? Viewed from modern European history, they are in essence ethnic-conflict-prevention institutions to be established where ethnic relations are too complicated: and the Chinese communist regime is no exception. Although they may appear either regimes of Marxists or totalitarians (or both) to be established where the disparity in wealth is too large, those are rather of their inessential attributes. Further, we must know that as long as we naively regard such inessential attributes as essential, our strategy for East and Southeast Asian security will fatally err; for we will fail to see that the biggest threat to East and Southeast Asian security is the collapse of the Chinese communist regime. Namely, if it collapsed, it should be followed by a replay of the Balkan tragedies that started immediately after the demise of the Soviet bloc in the early 1990s. To make matters worse, the Chinese replay should be far more disastrous than the original Balkan tragedies, for there is no such institution as the EU in East and Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, the total breakdown of the Chinese communist regime and the subsequent Balkanization of China are no longer an unreal nightmare: they have been getting more and more probable because the paradigm of society in China has steadily been changing since the mid 1990s. Moreover, we must know that the current North Korean problem is in truth one to be understood in precisely the same context. The overall security of East and Southeast Asia entirely depends upon whether or not the Chinese Communist Party can fully reverse the ongoing dangerous change in the paradigm of society in China.