From Shanghaiist:
Sun Liping is a professor of sociology at Qinghua University, and we recently read a short article he wrote about why Chinese society is going to remain stable. There have been several writers who have written responses to Professor Sun’s article, but before we get to those we’ll try to translate the gist of Professor Sun’s article as best we can.
Sun’s basic thesis is not that Chinese society is going to get ever more harmonious and hunky-dory, but rather that the chance of large-scale uprisings and unrest remains fairly small.
He says that this is because there is a greater “elasticity” to Chinese society and social structure than previously. He offers eight reasons why he believes this to be so:
1. The current demographic structure of 30-70 or 40-60 percent urban/rural allows plenty of room for containing the spread of social unrest. [Full Text]
Read also Fan Gui’s response to Sun Liping by Shanghaiist.
