"Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?" Mao Zedong asked in 1926. It is a useful question to keep in mind in the wake of the "friendship treaty" just signed between Russian President Putin and China's President Jiang Zemin.
Fear of enemies and the need to destroy them remains overpowering among Mao's heirs. It explains their imprisonment of members of the tiny Democratic Party, of Catholics loyal to Rome, of Protestants, Buddhists, and Muslims who resist supervision by the Party's Patriotic Church, the oppression of Tibet and the hunting down of the millions of adherents of Falun Gong.
Beijing's leaders justify persecution by linking supposed internal enemies to "outside forces" seeking to bring down Communist rule by "smokeless warfare." If they fail to crush their enemies, it is claimed, China's fragile stability will shatter and the country will be plunged into chaos.