Bangladesh's Dictator Flees, the People Triumph — How Far Is Xi Jinping From Her Fate?

A struggle against dictatorship that grew out of protests against an unfair civil-service quota system ended with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigning and fleeing the country, as demonstrators stormed her official residence; the military lifted its curfew at the same time.

History has once again proven that once the people truly rise up, unafraid of suppression and unafraid of sacrifice (more than 300 protesters died in this movement), the only possible outcome of a government's crackdown is its own downfall. Hasina had ruled for 15 years, and this was her fifth term in office. Even though she had thrown the country into chaos, she still refused to step down, safeguarding her own interests and those of the privileged elite while the common people suffered. At the same time, she carried out a large-scale purge of political opponents, including the murder of opposition social activists. Having endured as much as they could bear, the people finally rose up in a wave of resistance triggered by the civil-service quota issue. That this uprising succeeded owes a great deal to the military siding with the people at the critical moment. Army Chief of Staff Waker-uz-Zaman called on military personnel to ensure the safety of the people's lives and property and of the nation's major infrastructure. When suppressing the protesting crowds, they deliberately raised their rifles an inch, allowing the wave of protest to keep growing until it became a nationwide event.

A little over a month earlier, Hasina had visited China, where Xi Jinping gave her a grand reception and announced the elevation of China-Bangladesh relations to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership. Bangladesh is a Belt and Road country, and the CCP has propped up the Hasina regime with lavish sums, providing roughly 1 billion dollars in aid annually. Most of that money ended up in the pockets of the privileged elite families, with ordinary people seeing none of the benefit. Xi Jinping's iron-fisted style of rule found a kindred spirit in Hasina, often dubbed the "Iron Lady of the East." Like Xi, Hasina is a "red second generation": her father was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the leader of Bangladesh's independence movement. Though her father was not the founding leader of a communist regime the way Mao was for the CCP, Xi Jinping has nonetheless been busy recasting his own father as a founding hero of the People's Republic. In the minds of people like these, it is simply the natural order of things that the father conquers the realm and the children inherit the throne — even though the world has now entered an age in which democracy is the global mainstream. Acting against this tide, disregarding the people's aspirations for freedom and democracy, and forcibly clinging to power through violence, can only end the way it did: overthrown by the people.

Looking across the social crises that have emerged in Bangladesh, China has just as many, if not more. Over the past few years, the pandemic has left Bangladesh grappling with severe problems including high inflation, rising unemployment, and dwindling foreign exchange reserves. At present, more than 30 million young people in Bangladesh are unemployed, nearly a fifth of the total population. On top of that, inflation has eroded purchasing power, leaving domestic demand extremely weak. Meanwhile, the privileged elite continue to live in corrupt luxury. When people rose up in protest, Hasina cracked down on them by branding them "traitors" — just as the CCP brands every dissenter guilty of "subverting state power." Beyond its economic troubles, the fundamental social conflict in Bangladesh is the one between the privileged interest group led by the Hasina family and the broad mass of the Bangladeshi people. This long-simmering conflict became especially acute amid the economic downturn, and finally erupted over the unfair distribution of civil-service jobs — a single spark that grew into a raging fire. What happened in Bangladesh could just as easily happen in China; Xi's CCP-ruled China cannot possibly escape the same fate — it is only a matter of time.

The people of Bangladesh are already celebrating their victory, trampling images of Hasina's face underfoot, while the statue of her father, Rahman, has been smashed. Xi Jinping, watching this scene unfold, must surely feel a chill of fear — the very woman who, not long ago, shook his hand and pledged to build a "community of shared future for mankind" together with him, has met such an end. How far away is that same fate from him?