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Comment by rmason | Hacker News Reader

The Tianenmen square protests failed ultimately because the rest of China didn't know they were going on.

What happens now when with a flick of wechat the entire nation takes to the streets? All it will take is a leaders mistakes and a single spark.

It's not a question of whether China will have free speech and democracy but when.

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The Western world isn't doing a great job of advertising democracy at the moment. There's no natural progression towards free speech and democracy. It will happen if a majority of Chinese people are persuaded that it's a good idea. When they look at Trump and Brexit, I'm not so sure that they will be.

Having more control over their lives makes people intrinsically happier. As a result, even if everything else about their lives is the same, people in a democracy will be happier than people in an autocracy.

The Chinese people are riding a wave of growing affluence that is smoothing over the oppressive nature of the regime, but when growth stalls things are going to look very different.

Maybe. The future isn't that easy to predict, in my opinion. It's not as if every affluent society with low growth has become a democracy.

> What happens now when with a flick of wechat the entire nation takes to the streets?

If you can think of it, then so can the Chinese party state:

https://qz.com/848885/china-is-censoring-peoples-chats-witho...

After n rounds of chaos and peace cycles and losting millions of lives in best case.

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