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Ukrainian anti-government protesters stand on a makeshift barricade during clashes with riot police in central Kiev late in January 2014. Photo: AFP

People's Daily warns against colour revolutions, blames 'spread of Western ideology'

People’s Daily attacks spread of US ideology and warns of ‘high price to pay’ for ‘falling in trap’

People’s Daily has launched an assault on colour revolutions, saying the movements are a byproduct of the United States spreading its ideology.

The Communist Party’s mouthpiece yesterday filled its page five with five articles written by scholars exploring the roots of colour revolutions, their negative impacts, and how China might learn from the experience of those nations affected.

The term came into common usage to describe movements in the former Soviet Union and the Balkans during the early 2000s, though it has since been used to refer to events in the Middle East and Ukraine. Generally, the movements use nonviolent resistance against authoritarian governments and use colours or flowers as their symbols.

One of the articles in People’s Daily was written by Xu Songwen, of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

He said colour revolutions were most likely in nations that had a combination of slow economic development, high unemployment, and corruption.

“The one non-neglectable factor [in the development of] colour revolutions in these countries is the spreading of Western ideology, especially from the US,” Xu wrote.

Zhang Zhizhou, professor of International Relations at Beijing Foreign Studies University, wrote that colour revolutions were an “aftershock” that followed the fall of the Soviet Union. He said blindly introducing Western social reforms led only to chaos.

“There should be exploration of one’s own path and model instead of following the ‘superstition of Western institutions’,” Zhang wrote.

Other articles warned of “a high price to pay for nations that fall into the trap of colour revolutions” and described the movements as “enemies of national security” and “a source of rioting”.

Commenting on the coverage, Professor Qiao Mu, dean of Beijing Foreign Studies University’s Centre for International Communication Studies, said the paper was trying to provide theoretical justifications for “bashing” colour revolutions.

“[It] offered public opinion guidance two to three years ago during the Arab Spring and the theoretical justification now is a form of conclusion,” Qiao said.

Gu Su, professor of political philosophy at Nanjing University, agreed. “It is simply a systematic propaganda strategy to prevent the occurrence of democracy in China,” he said.

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