From Asia Pacific Media Network, Tom Plate wrote: Only lately have the American people awoken to the fact that China is no longer asleep.
These days, Chinese officials on the mainland seem to be developing a keen sense of humor. Just the other day, in response to a series of violent protests by farmers in rural China, a mainland official sought to explain the public embarrassments by tying them to China’s growing movement toward democracy!
What a kidder this official must be. Either he was joking, or the joke was on him. Growing unrest in China is not a symptom of democracy but a symptom of the relative lack thereof. Beijing’s only alternative to allowing the protests to occur would have been to crack down, a foolish decision that would have set China’s international image back ten years.
So the official line about a harvest of democracy in the countryside was at least good for a laugh, however unintentional.
