Let’s looking into a People’s Movements in China’s modern history:
The shortest one: it took 100 days for world’s expats in Peking holding a converted fortress defending Boxing Movement who was encouraged by the Qing Empire. The short war ended within 150 days by an allied victory of invasion, breaking into the Forbidden City and the great robbery of the royal palace (1900).
The longest war: it took 14 years for Chinese to be liberated from Japan occupations (1931-1945). Japan never achieved to conquer and occupy the whole China, but got defeated along end of the overlapping 3.5 years WWII in Pacific Theater (1941-1945).
It took a short 2.5 years of a civil war for Communist to liberate people from Nationalist who represented the “three big mountains on top of the people: feudalist, imperialist and bureaucratic capitalist ” (1947-1949).
Then it took 17 years for first-generation Communist to maintain a single ruling power of People’s Republic of China (1949-1966).
The party’s internal power battles divided the party and people, that was the 10-year long the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution against revisionist inside the party and government (1966-1976).
Then it took 10+ years of the “Restore and Correction” which overlapped with starting of “Reform and Open” (1977-1987).
But Reform and Open extended till 2018 will make its 40 years anniversary. This has been the longest movement that the communist has ever led its people to strive. Yet some say the R&O will continue to go on for many years.
The last “drag” may have started at the end of 1980’s, the nationwide political turmoil. In the tempest of the world’s communists’ fallen, China authority chose to repressed the civil challenge with the arm force. While the East Block moved on with their painful choice of peacefully reforming into democratic systems. The erection of a national capitalist power, in parallel with fundamental religion, is defeating the Globalization of Western’s standard and value. While in the central nation, transformation of the communist party into by definition “representing advanced productivity”, and get people and their leaders corrupted by power and money at a high velocity.
The truth and fact: nobody wanted a cold war against China; and no Chinese wanted to continue the fundamental revolutionary principles. This Western-Eastern synergy forged the transformation of a new state. In contrast to what its people used to believe, in Chairman Mao’s phrase: Service the People, we are seeing now under a lesser God.