When the author of The Coming Collapse of China, Gordon Chang, predicted the imminent demise of the Chinese Communist Party's rule two decades ago, he argued that "regimes collapse when people are no longer afraid and think they're no longer alone."

Chang's forecast has yet to materialize. The State that Mao built is still in business. But two facts are worth noting. One: It took the Soviet Union 74 years to implode and disappear, and a year before it happened, few analysts saw it coming. At this moment, the CCP's reign of terror in Beijing is just 73 years old. In China's extensive history, seven or eight decades is a mere flash in the pan.

Second, Mao's CCP is wildly out of step with the Chinese philosophies that long dominated the country's intellectual and cultural climate, namely, Taoism and Confucianism. If Chang's prediction eventually proves true, we will someday assess the regime of Mao and his ideological successors as a deadly aberration in Chinese political and ethical thought.