https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/456055-with-autocrats-on-defensive-us-has-opportunity
Moscow detains nearly 1,400 protesters after a bloody crackdown and returns its most prominent opposition figure to jail after what he suspects was a state-ordered poisoning that put him in the hospital. Beijing hints that it will send its army to quell protests against Hong Kong’s China-backed government.
For all their outward self-confidence, the governments of Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping seem unusually unnerved by recent protests, perhaps reflecting unstated concerns that the protests could threaten both regimes.
That’s unlikely, but those governments would be wise to take nothing for granted. After all, no one knows what will trigger an uprising that’s large enough to topple a government, or a series of them. No one could have predicted the Soviet crack-up of three decades ago or the “Arab Spring” of more recent years, however much the populations in both places were itching for change.
Moreover, autocracies face new challenges to maintaining power. Modern communications – computers, mobile phones, social media – make it harder for autocracies to prevent their constituents from securing information from the outside and, in turn, comparing their plight with their brethren in freer and more democratic societies.
