I took a 400-level modern Chinese politics class in college, under one of the "top" China watchers, the year before he moved to a tenure-track position at a Big Eastern School (McGill?) My term paper was an analysis of whether the Chinese army would crack down on students pushing for democracy. The prof. made it clear that he didn't believe they would, so that's what I wrote, even though I wasn't 100 % convinced.
At the time, I was up enough on the subject so I knew who the "hard line" generals were as opposed to the "reformers." What I didn't know and nobody seemed to notice was that the Central Committee had moved a division led by a reformer out of the capital to the Vietnamese border for "training," and had moved in a division led by a hard-liner.
That summer was Tiananmen Square.
That lesson learned, I'm watching the Egyptian tanks with concern, wondering who the hard-liners are in their army.
For those of you who have been paying attention to the news coverage and missing the bloviation, here's a handy wrap-up of the fringe view of events in Egypt, courtesy the Guardian.
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