Many were alive when the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain fell. That makes such large upheavals believable. The weakness of authoritarian regimes is that by their nature dissention is hidden. Those in charge aren't really aware of how far they're overshooting until it's too late to release some of the pressure. I don't understand Chinese culture or their current situation enough to say whether or not they're in danger but Saudi Arabia certainly seems to have many parallels with other authoritarian regimes that fell to revolution.

If anyone predicted in 1985 that a mere 7 years later the Soviet Union would no longer exist and Germany would be reunited, and it would all happen with essentially no violence, people would have derided them mercilessly.

Monumental changes can happen, and shockingly quickly.

Not to me. Soviet Union's fall was a very unique set of events, some unique to the time and sweep of history, some just plain unique. It was a combination of the right leaders, Chernobyl, fallout from WW2 divisions such as the Baltic States Molotov Pact protests, and Solidarity and Lech Walesa in Poland, then the right chain of events over a decade.

Many of those Soviet Republics were very reluctant participants, forcibly occupied with underlying resentment going back centuries in a couple of cases, to WW2 in others.

There seem very few parallels with Saudi or China.

Yeah, when China breaks down again, it will be for very unique reasons, singular for their time and place, and dependent on a few very good or bad political decisions.

When has social change ever not been unique?

Which is rather my point, rather than a few vague sweeping generalisations of GP drawing parallels where none appear to exist.

It's always easier to explain collapse with hindsight. :)

Well, Soviet Union (hence the Iron Curtain itself) were not really _well funded_ anymore when they fell. The system they had in place was completely failing.

Edit: or maybe I'm wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Unio...

The Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries were in many ways the opposite of modern China. They were not efficient at all, and their economies were absolutely terrible. China has its problems, but a moribund economy is not one of them.

>Saudi Arabia certainly seems to have many parallels with other authoritarian regimes that fell to revolution.

SA has the 12th highest purchasing power parity in the world. what parallels do you see exactly with the soviet union?

Fascist states don't need a revolution to collapse, though; they just need to run out of anger and people to oppress. Consider China's attempts to oppress Hong Kong; like with all prior oppression attempts, China must succeed if they want to continue expanding. Given how precarious their position is in HK, it's not a stretch to imagine that they might not be able to reconquer the South China Sea soon enough to ensure continued growth. China's out of places to expand in the west and south, and so it's South China Sea or bust for them. I don't know how they'll collapse, just that they will.

The Saudis are much more comfortable in their position. MBS can and will dangle individual rights for women, one by one, like red meat for the laity. He will garner applause throughout the next two decades for his progressive attitude towards women, even as he is a bloodthirsty despot.

Because they’ve never been to China but simultaneously think they knew a lot about China because the news they were fed. Particularly that Chinese people want democracy like Iraqis under Saddam (note: both are untrue).

While I haven't been to China, I think you mean Han Chinese. Uighurs and Tibet are less excited about being part of China.

The Han Chinese are, by far, the majority. Uyghurs are a small and unliked minority. What makes you think they're going to destabilize that nation? Did the poor treatment of black people in the US cause it to collapse? It did lead to a civil war at one point, and to some turbulent times a century later, but that's only because people in the US actually cared about human rights. I don't see any evidence that most of China's population is too concerned with the treatment of Uyghurs, unfortunately.

True for the Uyghurs, but less true for Tibetans. The Tibetan public is largely happy with what has happened under China - it's the deposed nobility who are less excited about it.

> free health-care and tertiary education.

Probably because there is no such thing. The people who vote against them realize that you’re still paying for them via taxes and that you’ll be destroying the entire market.

Destroying the market with the best healthcare research and the market with much of the best academic research shouldn’t be taken lightly.

in your effort to reiterate a cliche you've completely missed my point. nationalized health care has broad support:

https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/412545-70-...

and yet we can't get organized enough to pass it.

And in your effort to repeat dogma, you’ve missed mine. Support for a vague notion of nationalizing healthcare. In that article you linked it’s only 42 percent strongly supporting it. The rest is “somewhat” or worse.

Someone who “somewhat” supports Medicare for all doesn’t really like the actual proposed implementation. With less than a majority strongly supporting it, are you really surprised?