Stable bottom

稳腚 (wěn dìng): stable bottom

The stable bottom of the government.

“Stable bottom” (稳腚) sounds the same as “stability” (稳定). Under Hu Jintao’s leadership, the Communist Party has gone to great lengths to “maintain stability,” the rationale under which political dissidents are controlled and the media is censored.

Netizens joke that China’s leaders’ obsession with “social stability” is a just a pretext for insuring the stability of their “bottoms” on the thrones of power. “When the officials’ bottoms are stable,” the saying goes, “society is not stable. When the officials’ bottoms are not stable, then society is stable!” (官员稳腚了，社会就不稳定了；官员不稳腚了，社会就稳定了！)

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