China’s Reaction to the Color Revolutions: Adaptive Authoritarianism In Full Swing

This article provides an interpretivist-structuralist account to analyze the Chinese party-state’s perception of and policy adaptations to the Color Revolutions of 2005-2007. China’s leaders and established intellectuals perceived the Color Revolutions as a series of contagious and illegitimate political changes in Eurasia, instigated by three major factors: raging domestic grievances, electoral politics exploited by the opposition, and Western powers’ intervention for geo-strategic interests. This perception and interpretation of the Color Revolutions gave rise to a collective sense of external threat and prompted the Chinese regime to strengthen its coercive capacity. The result was the communist party’s increased control over liberal and critical media, political activism, civil rights advocacy, and Sino-Western civil exchanges. The Chinese state’s policy adaptations to the Color Revolutions attested to its long-term model of authoritarian developmentalism.