Earlier this month, several Chinese lawyers were convicted of “subversion” for colluding with “foreign forces” — read: the United States. The fear is that America’s aim is to ultimately foment regime change in Beijing with a popular uprising, like the “color revolution” in Ukraine and those of the Arab Spring. In what most regard as forced performances, some of the accused even confessed on TV that their legal challenges to the state were opening the doors to the deleterious influence of Western ideas. The Communist Party leadership also sees the promotion of Western-style practices, such as multi-party elections or an independent judiciary, as designed to undermine their rule through a creeping peaceful evolution that will inexorably result in turmoil.