The west used to think it definitely can make a Gorbachev in China. The movies 1984 and Animal Fram predicted that the socialist/communist revolutions would eventually reduce back to the old days. The West thinks the socialist/communist revolution will eventually fail. If the revolution succeeds, the success is only temporary.
With this judgment, the US has incited many color revolutions and been very successful. For a country as large as China, it only takes more effort but should be doable. Based on this judgment, the US has had 40 years of engagement strategy towards China. The theory is well known that when the economy developed, the middle class will become a dominant political power, and this political power wants the western political system. Some cases support this theory, such as South Korea and Taiwan. South Korea and Taiwan were dictatorship regimes after WWII, and the US supported these regimes. After South Korea and Taiwan become rich, they adopted the western political system. The collapse of the USSR verified this theory.
Even Mao sensed this danger in 1959. He knew USSR was heading in the wrong direction. From 1963 to 1964, within one year, the Communist Party of China published 9 open letters criticizing USSR. As a result, Mao launched the Great proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1966. The Cultural Revolution lasted for 10 years. It is the first time the ruling group of society asks the mass to a revolution against the ruling group itself. 10 years of the cultural revolution is stronger in intensity, duration, and comprehension than all the color revolutions combined, including the collapse of the USSR and Arab Spring.
Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (RGCR) works. However, the majority of academics consider the GPCR a failure. This is because GPCR wronged many innocent, mostly cadres of CPC. However, Mao achieved his political goal: to prevent people like Khrushchev and Gobarchiv from becoming top leaders of the CPC.
Today, the US has announced that the 40 years of engagement strategy towards China failed. This is equivalent to announcing that making a Gobarchiv in CPC is impossible. This is because Mao defeated the US engagement strategy with his GPCR. Therefore, the failure of the US engagement strategy is the victory of Mao’s GPCR.