It's my understanding the Chinese history is traditionally viewed as being cyclical, with each dynasty lasting for a period of time before being replaced by another. The Emperor of China was the appointed ruler of the nation on Earth by the Jade Emperor and the celestial bureaucracy, a title or status called the 'Mandate of Heaven'. If the dynasty in power began to rule ineffectively and there is unrest among the populace, it was believed that it had lost the Mandate and it was the right and duty of the Chinese people to depose the ruling government and replace it with another, at which time the new government would gain the Mandate of Heaven.
Of course, the rule of China by an Emperor ended with the Chinese Revolution's deposition of the Qing dynasty (which had all but lost control of a war-torn, highly unstable China) after which the Guomindang and Chiang Kai-Shek governed China after a period of unrest, only later to be driven out by Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party. Since the Republic and (later) the Party removed the previous government and installed their own government in its place, does the CCP currently have the Mandate of Heaven from the point of view of Chinese folk religion and traditional history? After all, even foreign invaders have held the Mandate in the past, such as the Mongols during the Yuan dynasty and the Manchu during the Qing. I understand that this is a highly subjective question, but I would like a historian of China to weigh in on it.
I'm not an official historian yet,
but it is my understanding that the conclusion of the revolution marked the end to that line of thinking in Chinese history. You see, Socialist idealism at that time was seen as the means to the end, which is communism. All past Communist revolutionaries saw themselves as the end to history, and in fact Karl Marx himself believed that if Communism were ever established, that it would be the end to history as we know it. In other words, civilization would cease to see any of the change and class conflict that had characterized it since its inception. Communism means the end of class struggle and the end to international conflict. Obviously, this didn't happen in China, but Mao did succeed in establishing a Communist states (I realize that there shouldn't ideally be such a thing as a "Communist State, since Marxist Communism is stateless, but it is what it is). In doing so, he and his followers believed themselves to be something like the next step in the the finale of history (since the success of the Communist revolution in Russia was the "beginning of the end" in this logic). To a classical historian in China, it would seem like their civilization had escaped that cycle of dynastic rule, which communists would see as a form of slavery anyway. That is, by the way, the goal of Marxism in the first place, to escape slavery and subjugation (you could think of it as a sort of Nirvana, but on the scale of a millennia old civilization, collective nirvana).
I'm not saying that the majority of Chinese citizens think this way, or that China is the epitome of Marxist thinking (it's not), but if there were any classical Confucian Chinese historians who you could bring from the past to look at the state of China today, they probably wouldn't recognize it. There would be no dynasty or idealism or sense of cycles. It would seem like the idea of a "Mandate of Heaven" was almost completely out of the picture.
As well as what /u/portabledavers said, it's important to note that the mandate of heaven was often a post-hoc explanation to justify passage of power from one leader to another. The kind of disruption that normally precipitated a major power shift (massive droughts/famines) or were part of one (rebellions/uprisings) were then used by the next dynasty as evidence of the previous one losing it's mandate.
China is officially an atheist state. Although even businessmen are now allowed to join the CPC and even get 'elected' to the legislature, people who publicly adhere to any religion are not. The mandate of heaven is considered an anachronous dogma today. Scholars no longer blame it for the fall of dynasties, but rather analyse the various factors that caused their downfall. The vast majority of Chinese are officially atheist, although Huntington disputes these figures.
Plus, the mandate of heaven was vehemently Confucian. Mao ridiculed Confucianism. He considered Legalism a far better ideology, and openly praised Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor to unify China. Qin Shi Huang had massacred all non-Legalist scholars after unifying most of China, burning the vast majority of their works. Confucianism became an official dogma only later on, in the Han dynasty.
But if you are curious to know if Chinese citizens are satisfied or discontent with their government, I like this TED talk by Eric X Li.
I'm not a historian by any means but I just wanted to add some information I picked up from history podcasts. In particular, this episode by Laszlo Montgomery describes the shift in ideology of the common Chinese people and intellectuals:
http://chinahistorypodcast.com/china_history_podcast_046-the_may_4th_movement
China in the mid 1800s to early 1900s was in a very poor state. It suffered one humiliating defeat after another to foreign powers along with many unfavorable concessions. China at the time was still ruled by the Qing dynasty which was based on the Confucian model of governance, as it was with many dynasties prior. The traditional Chinese way of thinking was very focused on conserving past traditions and bringing the country back to the gold standard of the past.
Multiple attempts at modernizing China in the late 1800s were easily quashed by the powers that be. The existing power structure was obviously not going to embrace change that threatened their own power. And I would say, one of the reasons why the attempts were so easy to put down was due to a lack of momentum. The traditional Chinese way was the only way people had known for a very long time and the reformers with their new foreign ideas did not have the backing to push through reforms against the powerful opposition.
But the defeats and unfavorable concessions kept happening, even after the fall of the Qing. All of this culminated in the treaty of Versailles, when in exchange for help on the side of the allies during WW1, China was not returned the German held Chinese territories that it expected. Instead those territories went to Japan. In response, the May 4th movement erupted and finally there was an outpouring of support to embrace change. In particular, communism took root in part because it was seen as a rejection of the western powers who had been so keenly taking advantage of China in the past and betraying China after WW1. The traditional Chinese way of governance was also out and along with it went the ideas of dynasties and the mandate of heaven. This is the reason why i don't think you'll hear the mandate of heaven popularly used in modern China.
Thanks to everyone for all the great answers.
Are there any books and documentaries you would recommend on both Imperial and post-Imperial China?