The Chinese have apparently pushed their government to do an about face on its anti-covid policy. Iranians continue to defy the authorities despite a bloody crackdown. Authoritarian regimes seem to be retreating a little under pressure from the streets. Western experts and officials are watching these developments in the toughest countries in the world with the utmost caution, without diminishing their significance.
In Iran, “the regime is very weakened”, explains to AFP Azadeh Kian, Franco-Iranian sociologist, professor at the University of Paris-Cité. “We see it in the way he acts”, she says, quoting the use of ever-increasing repression such as executions to scare the population. “The decline of the regime is obvious,” she said, calling the movement a “revolution” – and not a “revolt” – of a nation “united against a bloodthirsty and repressive regime” that has plunged more than half the population into poverty.
Thousands of kilometers from Iran, in China, the regime is also arousing growing rejection throughout the country. “The regime will not collapse overnight, but its decline has begun,” said Lun Zhang, professor of Chinese studies at Cergy-Paris University.
“Universal Aspiration”
It is likely that we are first witnessing a semblance of a return to “normal”, explains to AFP Mr. Zhang, also a researcher at the Agora center who studies the evolution of contemporary societies. Because after having lived in a “gigantic prison for three years”, the Chinese yearn for their freedom of movement. “But now there is a very deep flaw,” he says. The oppressive policy under the pretext of fighting covid has dealt a blow to the regime “much bigger than Westerners can think”.
Already in January, Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) noted that “the future of autocrats was much bleaker than it seems” in the NGO’s annual report.
People can give the illusion that they accept repressive laws, “because repression works up to a point, but fundamentally, nobody (…) likes to live in oppression”, declared to AFP Tirana Hassan, interim executive director of HRW. This is why there are disputes beyond Iran and China, from Burma to Egypt via Hong Kong, Venezuela, Russia, Bangladesh or Thailand. Of course, “the idea that what we see in China and Iran is significant is true,” continues Ms. Hassan.
For Lun Zhang, the events in China even constitute “a historic turning point, 33 years after the events of Tiananmen” when the population denouncing corruption had demanded political and democratic reforms before being repressed.
“I cannot say what the outcome of these protest movements in the world will be, it would be reckless,” French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told AFP. But “these protests send a big message,” she said. “It is a violent but positive denial to all those who said the values of democracies in retreat”, she continues, while “the speeches consisting in saying that democracies were in retreat and that people were attracted by authoritarian regimes or accepted them, unwittingly aided those regimes”. All over the world, the demonstrators have in common to be carried by the same “universal aspiration to fundamental freedoms”, continues Ms. Colonna.
“Not a sprint” but “a marathon”
The head of HRW nevertheless remains on her reserve about the fall of these regimes. As historic as they are, the street movements will only lead to real change if the international community “stands with these populations for weeks, months and even years”, she says. “It’s not a sprint. It’s a marathon.”
Because history is filled with the fall of authoritarian regimes that led to other authoritarian regimes, recalls Tirana Hassan.
In Venezuela, for example, the fierce opposition did not get the better of President Nicolas Maduro.
Protesters can now count on a surge of solidarity around the world with an unprecedented sounding board via social networks. But the latter are also formidable tools in the service of repression. Also the international community must show a stronger “political will” if we want these regimes to change, opines Azadeh Kian. She observes that Westerners remain timorous about the sanctions which spare many relatives of the Iranian regime and their children who live in the United States, Canada and elsewhere, “some taking advantage of democracy”.
But the exercise is particularly delicate. It is a question, for example, of measuring the expression of their solidarity without aggravating the situation of Western prisoners in Iran.
The Chinese ambassador to Paris Lu Shaye has minimized the scope of the demonstrations in his country and refused to attribute the scale of the movement to democratic aspirations. In front of a few journalists, he accused “external forces who want to destroy the country and overthrow the Chinese Communist Party”, targeting the United States without ever naming them.
To change these regimes, a political alternative must also emerge in these countries, the experts conclude.
The Chinese have apparently pushed their government to do an about face on its anti-covid policy. Iranians continue to defy the authorities despite a bloody crackdown. Authoritarian regimes seem to be retreating a little under pressure from the streets. Western experts and officials are watching these developments in the toughest countries with the utmost caution…