China vs. Myanmar

Watching the disasters in Asia unfold offers a telling story about power.

In Myanmar, we see a regime that has held power for its own sake. It cares little for its own people and would rather see the victims of the cyclone die from disease, starvation and exposure than to seek outside help. The regime has power, but demonstrates no power as far as helping its own people.

They may stay in power, however, because they understand one simple fact: The key to holding on to power is their army. Keep the army happy, keep it in control and they will stay in power. The disaster actually has helped them stay in power because any dissident factions within the nation have been so terribly weakened they lack the strength to rise up.

In China, we see a regime that seized power from the bottom up, instead of from the top down as in Myanmar. The Communists came to power as a people's revolution. Then, when the people who lead the revolution seized control, they became institutions of the establishment. But as authoritarian as the regime is, there is a core philosophy of Communism that puts emphasis on the worker. That Marxist viewpoint has been superseded by the Leninist philosophy that the state comes first. But there is still an understanding that the state cannot exist without the worker. It was Mao who said that power grows from the barrel of a gun, and we saw that in Tianamen. But we have seen the benevolent side of that philosophy as the state has come to rescue its workers from the earthquake. More than 6,000 people were pulled from the rubble by rescuers this past week.