I know that some people still hold on to the naive notion that because China is a "communist" country it's some kind of Worker's Paradise. They're dead wrong, and the truth is that the People's Republic of China is on the brink,
class tensions are rising to a boiling point. Because of the absence of civil society, of non-state institutions capable of causing societal change, non-violent reform brought about by civil disobedience as happened with Solidarity in Poland is nearly impossible. Denied justice by the state, China's working class is resorting to self justice, riots are becoming a fact of life throughout much of China.
I fully expect that in the near future the situtation is going to boil over, and this ain't going to be no Tianamen Square. Think Romania 1989. It's already started....
WANZHOU, China, Dec. 24 - The encounter, at first, seemed purely pedestrian. A man carrying a bag passed a husband and wife on a sidewalk. The man's bag brushed the woman's pants leg, leaving a trace of mud. Words were exchanged. A scuffle ensued.
Easily forgettable, except that one of the men, Yu Jikui, was a lowly porter. The other, Hu Quanzong, boasted that he was a ranking government official. Mr. Hu beat Mr. Yu using the porter's own carrying stick, then threatened to have him killed.
For Wanzhou, a Yangtze River port city, the script was incendiary. Onlookers spread word that a senior official had abused a helpless porter. By nightfall, tens of thousands of people had swarmed Wanzhou's central square, where they tipped over government vehicles, pummeled policemen and set fire to city hall.
Minor street quarrel provokes mass riot. The Communist Party, obsessed with enforcing social stability, has few worse fears. Yet the Wanzhou uprising, which occurred on Oct. 18, is one of nearly a dozen such incidents in the past three months, many touched off by government corruption, police abuse and the inequality of the riches accruing to the powerful and well connected.
"People can see how corrupt the government is while they barely have enough to eat," said Mr. Yu, reflecting on the uprising that made him an instant proletarian hero - and later forced him into seclusion. "Our society has a short fuse, just waiting for a spark."
The only thing that's prevented these riots from spreading has been the hard hand of the state, and the use of military troops against civilians. Some day there are just not going to be enough troops to put down one of these popular uprisings, and some serious shit is going to go down.