In Slate, Ian Bremmer, President of the Eurasia Group, gives his impressions of a recent trip to China:
A visit to Beijing generates two immediate impressions: growth continues at top speed; and, surprisingly, there’s little sign of any real instability anywhere. We’ve seen the stats. The Chinese government has publicly acknowledged that the number of “mass group incidents,” an official euphemism for public protests involving at least 50 people, grew from 8,700 in 1993 to nearly 87,000 in 2005. Even for a population of 1.3 billion, that’s a lot of angry people.
But the wide variety of anecdotal evidence I gathered here tells me that a broad majority of Chinese generally support their central government. That support is not unconditional; it certainly seems to lack the intensity the Chinese government claims. Just about everyone gripes and grumbles about something. But if you ask people how the leadership is doing, almost no one gives it low marks. (People spoke freely on many government-related subjects.) The government is given plenty of credit for China’s rising prosperity, and Beijing’s citizens take considerable pride in the emerging strength of China’s economy. [Full text]
Read also “Nonsense reporting about China” from Danwei, which points out that this article is not always factually correct.
[Image: Cranes dominate parts of the Beijing skyline, via Slate]