I have just finished reading a book about Zhao Ziyang (Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang), a former prime minister of China. The book is an editorialized transcript of a number of recordings made by Zhao Ziyang while he was under house arrest from 1989 until his death in 2005. While under house arrest, Zhao used the music cassettes of his grandchildren to record a revealing history about modern-day China, Chinese leaders and the uncompromising, absolute power of the Communist Party of China.

Zhao Ziyang began his political career as a minor party official in a remote region of China. It was during the time when China was struggling to recover from the effects of Mao Zedong’s disastrous Cultural Revolution. Zhao came to the notice of leaders in Beijing early in his career, and Deng Xiaoping brought Zhao to the capital. This was in the early Eighties, which saw the cautious beginning of Deng’s economic reforms in a bid to rescue China from the excesses of the Mao years.

Zhao continued to rise in the party hierarchy by his contribution to China’s economic policy, and was eventually appointed prime minister by the politburo at the command of Deng Xiaoping. Zhao’s eventual downfall has been attributed to his public pleading for a peaceful compromise on the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989. Zhao’s pleas were opposed by his main rival, Li Peng. Deng overruled Zhao, and ordered the army to crush the Tiananmen uprising in which several thousand lives were lost. Zhao’s ultimate house arrest and disappearance from public view and memory was carried out with unique Chinese efficiency.

This account may help explain the way China reacts to many national and international events. Nothing has basically changed in the Chinese polity in the last 20 years, or even since 1949. In order to perpetuate the monolithic supremacy of the CPC, Deng Xiaoping triggered off the brilliant shift to an economic growth model that would make China a world power without having to make any political compromise.

During the 2008 economic downturn, China’s exports plummeted and it put in place a massive economic stimulus package to sustain employment and maintain social order. A senior member of the politburo observed that the current working generation of Chinese were born around or after 1978. They are the principal beneficiaries of China’s economic boom and have little memory of the Mao era. China must protect this generation from the economic downturn however it can. Employment will be generated even if it means ripping up railway lines and relaying them. China cannot afford another Tiananmen- like uprising. The CPC is fully committed to protect its hold over the Chinese people.

That the CPC has its own way in all matters, however, is a myth. Several uprisings by disaffected populace in various parts of China have been crushed and the news kept out of the public domain. Rare events — the uprising in Tibet and the riots in Xian — that get publicized are more of an exception. But no one should underestimate the determination of the CPC to use whatever means in order to retain its unchallenged supremacy.

Which brings me to recent events in India-China relations. China’s overpowering influence in Myanmar and Nepal is now growing. Pakistan is an old ally of China. That China was a major supplier of defence and other aid to Pakistan is well known. It now appears that China provided Pakistan with bomb-grade uranium way back in 1971. India’s dealings with China and vice versa have remained fragile ever since China attacked India in 1962. China has and will continue to blow hot and cold. Issuing separate paper visas to Indians from Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh is the latest in a series of Chinese diplomatic pettiness. Its intemperate statements regarding the prime minister’s and the Dalai Lama’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh must have something to do with the CPC worries about its inability to totally subdue the indigenous population in Tibet.

To maintain the political supremacy of the CPC, the Chinese will continue to act in an unpredictable manner. It will make the right noises regarding climate change to earn international brownie points, while diverting rivers and building environmentally disastrous dams that may affect parts of India adversely. China will continue to claim the presence of a free press and a good human rights record, while officials in its districts, and even in Beijing, keep private prisons to illegally detain citizens who protest against injustice. This was recently exposed by the Human Rights Watch.

The world may continue to be starry-eyed about China, but India knows that it must deal with a troublesome and unpredictable neighbour. China may not be envious of India’s economic progress but it certainly is apprehensive of our vibrant democracy.

Zhao Ziyang had espoused political reforms, not because he was a democrat at heart, but because they were a practical means to harness the energy of the masses for growth and development in a more sustainable and inclusive manner. Although Deng and his colleagues found such espousal anathema and got rid of Zhao, the debate over China’s political future is not over. The Soviet Union did not last, the Berlin Wall had to fall; who can predict how long the CPC can continue as the sole ruler of China?