Good article by Anne Applebaum, who is without doubt a leading expert on the horrific history of 20th century totalitarian rule.

The Chinese (and their leaders) have a unique strength in that they seem to be able to hold two directly contrary ideas in their heads at the same time: they understand that awfulness brought on by Mao and his cronies, but because they fear the awfulness of the catclysm that would occur if the Communist party were somehow violently overthrown (or even non-violently - who wants to end up like Russia?) they are willing to support the Communist dictatorship as long as it continues to deliver increased material well-being that the policies initiated by Deng Xiaping have wrought.

It is probably no coincidence that a re-evaluation has taken place regarding failed KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek (aka Jiang Jiasheng), who after all, was attempting to create the kind of society the communists have inadvertently created after defeating him - confucian, capitalist, prosperous, and relatively open, but controlled by a single party. The communists are the true heirs to Chaing Kai-shek, and Chiang, who never started a famine that killed 30 million people, has starated to look relatively good. But don't expect the government's Xinhua News Agency to go on record saying that.

Which brings us to the other great issue that the Chinese are able to simultaneously hold contradictory thoughts about - that Taiwan is an integral part of China on the one hand, while being obviously de facto independent at the same time. By not addressing this obvious contradiction head on, the Chinese on both sides of the Strait are buying themselves time until the day when - hopefully - China and Taiwan can unite and the and the mainland evolves into a Sinaporean-style quasi Democracy.

The Chinese are almost certainly right to take this practical attitude towards othewise insoluble problems. If fact, it is a tribute to the genius of the Chinese people they can do so - I only wish that other peoples with insoluable problems could take such an attitude. As Thomas Friedman pointed out a few years ago, the leaders of the Palestinians and their backers would do much better to accept a 'temporary' compromise such as has been on offer for decades, instead of continuing to stoke a suicidal, unwinnable, fratricidal, and endless war with Israel. This attitude can lead nowhere except the hopeless morass that continues to this day. Across the Taiwan Strait, at least, there is plenty of basis for hope.