After reading this article a couple of times through, I'm still at a loss identifying any startling newness from the Communist camp.

The communist party has a reputation of population control stretching back through the dark history of Russia; without the need to include all of them, there are many more examples of stifled enterprise, through communist ideology.

The most dangerous change though, is the attitude of the West towards the controlling force communism is. The West is captured by greed. There is a big price to pay, and no doubt in my mind, the populations of the West will be contaminated by our involvement with Chinese communism, and our embrace of its new wealth

Fear will work for only so long! And will only force a growing cohort of dissidence underground, where its ranks will swell exponentially?

And when as it will, a crisis arises that needs the people to willingly respond. They will be as cooperative as herded cats?

One can only sit on a powder keg for so long. And given the party is just a tiny minority, ruling through fear! They need to fear those they oppress.

And only because they cannot invoke the power of love to work for them? Except to use it and the loved ones of the exposed dissidents to compel civil obedience.

And as the first consequence ensure that the level of hate for the party grows and grows, until it can no longer be restrained and ends in a bloodbath rebellion that will in all likelihood involve the military and brother against brother?

Alternatively, if this president was a wise and benevolent leader!?

He would unleash the power of love for country and its people to work for him and the controlling party. By being far more inclusive and using much more carrot and far less stick. Asking the people for their views via referenda and or plebiscite. And then acting on those views! Suppressing dissidence merely forces it underground!

And China could have elections at a province level between candidates rather than parties, so there's the appearance of choice and a contest of ideas? And in a digital age. No need to restrict freedom to travel anywhere inside national borders!

Here's the real danger for the president.

If power corrupts and it does. Then absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This mere man is not infallible and needs an oversight committee to prevent him from becoming the nation's worst enemy! (Trump?)

The most important voice in the room is the one that disagrees with you. If the employer and the employee are of one mind? Then one of them is redundant!
Alan B.

Hear, hear and well said, Dan.
Alan B.

If you stand back, & look at this piece from a little distance, you can see that the current United Nations inner circle are using Communist China as a model for their own planned domination of all people on earth.

The only difference is that the UN is not planning on being quite so benign.

On'ya Al.

Hopefully Xi won't emulate Mao by executing a multi-million "purge" ie. slaughter of his own people, every 15 years.

This is horrific, hell on earth. All we can do is pray for the Chinese people and for those people languishing under Chinese occupation. We should also pray for the people of Taiwan that they will be able to continue defending their country. May God deliver them all!

Now if Hitler still ruled Germany with current technology, then absolutely no Jew would survive the holocaust. Some Jews managed to escape, by hiding in double-walled cellars, by forming partisan units in forests, by forging their identity, by crawling through sewers - none of this would be possible now: face-recognition software, genetic tests, infra-red photography from helicopters, sonars that can look through walls, surveillance cameras everywhere, data-collection to capture all shopping and detect abnormal patterns that indicate that food is purchased for extra people, etc.

And it would not only be the Jews, the Gypsies, the communists, homosexuals and the mentally-retarded - sooner or later each and every one of us would get their turn!

Next they are working on mind-reading by probing the brain, even from distance; and self-driven killer police-robots are already being developed.

What a wonderful world technology has given us...

And Why is electricity Bill Shorten saying that we have no problem with China?