The New York Times looks at why the Communist Party has managed to stay in power despite its near death in 1989, and why it is not likely to be toppled anytime soon:
Educated, white-collar workers like Ms. Guo are emblematic of an increasingly self-confident Chinese middle class willing to cut the government slack over its strictures and imperfections. To this group, such flaws are outweighed by the nonstop double-digit economic growth the regime has presided over, and they have come to appreciate the social stability that comes with autocratic rule.
Not to say that opposition to the status quo doesn’t exist. Dispossessed peasants regularly take to the streets over seized land. Dissidents continue to call for pluralism, though the authorities are increasingly suppressing them for fear that an Arab-style “jasmine revolution” could take hold here. And disaffected young people share barbed criticisms of their leaders online — until the censors delete the posts.
But the ruling Communists, most Western experts agree, are in no danger of being toppled anytime soon. “They’ve shown themselves to be a whole lot more flexible than the Egypts and the Tunisias of the world,” said Kevin O’Brien, a China expert at the University of California, Berkeley, pronouncing himself amazed at “how much they’ve managed to develop thumbs.”
Such a Darwinian ability to evolve grew out of the party’s near-death experience in 1989, when students and intellectuals occupied Tiananmen Square for seven weeks to demand free elections and an end to press restrictions, corruption and nepotism. In the years since it violently crushed those protests, the regime has found a way to satisfy many people much of the time — enough so that it has dissuaded most citizens from rolling the uncertain dice of pro-democracy street demonstrations.
