China used to be a fresh-fledged, short-lived democracy far from perfection between 1912 and 1928.

The Revolution of 1911 overthrew the last imperial dynasty, which had been a system continuing for two thousand years in China, and this revolution established the Republic of China run mainly by warlords who controlled different regions.

The Chinese Communist Party won the Chinese Civil War immediately after WWII, with the full support of the Soviet Union and also unintentional assistance from the Truman administration in 1949 to set up the People’s Republic of China, a totalitarian system where people would enjoy no freedom in any way.

The modern Chinese democracy movement emerged after the death of Mao Zedong, and the advent of the Xidan Democracy Wall in November 1978 was accompanied by growing political pluralism and infighting of political power within the top leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, which offered the political opportunity for grass-roots people to express their grievances and demand freedom.

This was the inception of the modern Chinese democracy movement.

With the ascendance of Deng Xiaoping to power, he outlawed the Xidan Democracy Wall Movement and therefore quelled the first wave of democracy in China.

Deng Xiaoping was aided by his two liberal-minded Party chiefs Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, China enjoyed a decade long relaxed political period between 1979 and 1989.

This offered Chinese people the opportunity to think considerably freely to learn about the western ideologies of democracy and freedom.

The outbreaks of two pro-democracy movements in 1986 and 1989 were really the results of this 10-year political relaxation.

Deng Xiaoping and the hardliners then ordered a military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square democracy protests, which killed the democratic advancement that had flourished in China, and resulted in China retrogressing politically back to nil.

Chinese lost the political opportunity during 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests.

The US President George Bush’s choice could have decided who would win and who would lose in 1989, but unfortunately he chose to throw his support behind Deng Xiaoping.

Fleeing Tiananmen Square massacre exiles, set up the Federation for a Democratic China (FDC) in Paris, France in late September, 1989, vowing to end the one-party rule of the CCP in China as their ultimate political goal.

The sad thing was that George Bush refused to offer support to Chinese democracy movement with a wishful thinking that economic growth of China would lead to its political liberalization, West democracies followed suit.  

The Chinese democracy movement was then off the sideline and ignored. That became the external factor of the continuous downturn of the modern Chinese democracy movement.

The continuous downturn of the modern Chinese democracy movement had also its internal factors, resources and leadership.

1.      There were no resources to maintain this movement to keep prosperous and moving forward.

2.      The unsurpassable problem is that the movement’s leaders are short of political charisma and leadership to attract masses to follow.

It is most crucial that the advent of political changes must exist for China to achieve democracy, for which the following conditions must be met:

First, the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s top leaders must have the sense of political consciousness and historical mission to actively initiate top-down political reforms to promote open political elections.

On the contrary, they are hoping to remold the whole world to the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian political model.

Secondly, the ordinary people must have the awareness to demand political change. The reality is that the majority of Chinese people display a weak voice or no voice and indifference to political reform.

The third factor that could push change in China's current political system is the Western democracies who so far have committed the strategic error to believe that the rapid economic development would assist China in moving toward political liberalization.

In the past three decades, the entire West has had little interest in pushing the CCP for political change.

The question is: Who wants China to democratize? Who does not want China to democratize? And who does not care about China to democratize?

It is only a minority of forward-thinking Chinese elites who expect democracy for China, not the general public. Most Chinese people do not even know what democracy is.

China’s current rulers obviously do not want China to be a democracy, which is not in their interest, as it would greatly damage their vested interests.

The US led West democracies behaved not care whether China is democracy or not.

Dr. Wang Bingzhang, founder of the overseas Chinese democracy movement once pointed out that the Western democracies, especially the US, did not care about China's democracy and did not even want China to democratize.

He speculated that once China has achieved democracy, China will emerge from the political yoke and will have a huge inexhaustible strength to leap into the position of the world's new superpower, to compete against the existing dominant superpower.

It cannot be ignored that the whole world, especially the United States leading the world, badly lacks a clear and correct understanding of true China, the evil of the Chinese Communist regime and its looming danger to the future of the world.

Since World War II onwards over seven decades, the United States has been basically wrong in its dealings with the Chinese Communist Party while other West democracies blindly follow suit.

The emergence of Trump was exciting for the Chinese pro-democracy activist circles as it was seen as a political opportunity.

Of all US Presidents, he poses the greatest deterrent and threat to the Chinese Communist Party since 1945.

It is likely that the US-China Trade War will expand and transfer to other domains.

The Hudson Institute speech of Vice President Pence heralded the tangible reversal of the 40-year US China policy and it may further change the US-China relationship toward a new cold war.

If the current US Administration keeps up this work and direction targeting the evil Beijing, the stronghold of totalitarianism will be destroyed and wiped out.

It can be foreseen and predicted, in the post-communist era, a united and constitutional democracy in China would be highly unlikely, instead, a falling apart of China would be more realistic.

What, in the future, China will be alike has three possible scenarios:

Scenario 1. The CCP will insist on continuing its rule.

Scenario 2. The Chinese Communist Party may be forced to do structural changes because of increasing ruling difficulties, which would trigger the downfall of the regime. But Xi Jinping has explicitly ruled this out.

Scenario 3. A blundering CCP collapses overnight like what happened to the former Soviet Union under heavy blows of externally full-out attacks and domestic unrest, I would speculate that this third scenario is the most likely.

Hong Kong is triggering this process.

The continuing protests in Hong Kong may incite political changes in China, which really worries Beijing.

Beijing’s concession over the aspiration of Hong Kong people would mean the first domino of the Beijing regime’s downfall, Beijing is on a battle for life or death.

The attitude and stance of major democracies is now obviously wait-and-see.

If Beijing had to suppress the Hong Kong protesters by whatever kind of force to stop the protests violently, the Western democracies would unanimously condemn and isolate Beijing.

Beijing would be further cornered to go bankrupt.

In 1923, the British Government proposed an "international condominium of China".

In 1924, a Chinese political prophet prophesied that the Republic of China would be destroyed by Communism, and Condominium would be the solution to the collapse of communist China.

His first prophesy came true in 1949 when the communist Chinese won the Chinese civil war to establish the People’s Republic of China. Will his second prophesy be fulfilled? It is perceivable that China is now moving in this direction.

To sum up, in the post CCP era evolving in this upheaval scenario, the chance would be very slim for China to rebuild a united and constitutional democracy with all ethnic minorities remaining inside its boundaries as before.

Democracy will arrive in China only when the Chinese Communist Party is no more but China will then be splitting apart into ethnic regions.

That would be the tough and harsh reality the Chinese people will face. Therefore the Chinese people should hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

It will be witnessed that the century long dream of Chinese will be realized, and the whole world will see this spectacular, a peaceful and advanced new world emerges when the CCP is no more.