Science and Totalitarianism

[Montmorency]

One thing to remember about China is that it is wracked by protests throughout the country, daily, and has long been so (Economist: "Why protests are so common in China"). The thing is, these protests are not like the Yellow Jackets in France or Occupy Wall Street, whose byword are/were basically " the system". If millions of people started marching through China's public spaces demanding wholesale (if underspecified) social and governmental change, that would give the Party deja vu of Tiananmen Square...

Rather, Chinese protests are generally "issue" protests, such as unmet government commitments, urban migrant permitting rights, HIV patient rights, Falun Gong rights, Tibetan rights, industrial-sector labor unrest... the important thing is that these protests are limited in scope, intend to "work within the system", and are largely non-political. That suits the leadership just fine, or at least relatively fine given the baseline social stress.

Divide and conquer and all that.

FWIW