How stable and confident is a nation that prevents internet users searching for the words 'Egypt' and 'Tunisia'? In democracies, no one feels the need to block news from North Africa, but in China the government won't allow people to know what's going on. This is hardly surprising, because what autocracies fear most is contagion from popular movements.
They fear contagion because while confidently asserting that their regimes will last forever, in their heart of hearts, autocrats are aware of the fragility of governments that have no mechanism for change aside from popular revolt.
Dictatorships tend to end with astonishing speed. The entire Soviet bloc disintegrated in a couple of years but its component parts fell much more quickly. Arguably the most repressive dictatorship in Eastern Europe, the Albanian regime of Enver Hoxha, which seemed to have total control, was swept away in remarkably short order by people who had never known democracy but latched on to developments in neighbouring countries.
China, we are repeatedly told, is different. Apparently, water flows in another direction on the mainland, and the entire experience of human history has no relevance to the Chinese people. You can almost hear the weary old cliches being wheeled out with the ghastly predictability of knowing the outcome of a crash the split second before it happens.
First up is the idiotic assertion that Chinese people are uniquely uninterested in politics. There's a glimmer of truth here in as much as, like the mass of people everywhere in the world, the Chinese are basically uninterested in politics most of the time but can become very interested at specific moments. The Chinese Communist Party should perhaps look to its own history to see how it managed to mobilise millions of people for political purposes.
Secondly, the Chinese are said to be different because they crave stability above all else. Again it should be stressed that the desire for stability is hardly a singular Chinese characteristic. Throughout the world, people prefer what they know and what they are used to as opposed to the uncertainties of change. Yet there comes a time when the familiar is no longer acceptable.
This is why many millions of Chinese people uproot themselves and travel around the nation and beyond for a better life, and this is why the Chinese have embraced the ending of the command economy with such fervour, plunging into hitherto unknown forms of speculation to try their luck in the capitalist system. These are not the hallmarks of a people resistant to change.