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

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.