Doing business on the mainland can sometimes be hair-raising. But there was nothing to prepare me for the moment last Thursday when a few thousand police in riot gear ran out from the underground parking lot at Shenzhen's city hall, just as I was about to cross the street in front of them.
Needless to say, I gestured 'after you' as they trundled past with a quiet, almost detached air to the pavement opposite, heading towards some peasants demonstrating against alleged illegal land seizures in the city's Nanshan district.
It wasn't a shocking experience; far from it. Everything was so orderly. It took us no longer than usual to gain access to China's most elegantly designed municipal headquarters, and no one seemed nervous about what was going on outside.
As our taxi took us away through the police cordon, we had a good look at the protesters - who carried the same weary, confused look as hundreds of millions of other laobaixing (common people) - and the riot police, who were much the same, if younger. The only thing separating them was luck, which had been on the side of those in uniform when they originally landed their jobs. The protesters were clearly angry, but before such a massive display of power, they weren't about to do anything foolish.
The same cannot be said, obviously, for the 80,000-plus similar incidents that reportedly happened across the mainland last year. Some of the most awful, including the recent shooting in Dongzhou village and the beating to death of a girl in Zhongshan , have happened in Guangdong, which is still by far the mainland's richest province.
But this foreign investor, for one, is undaunted, and is continuing to put his money where his mouth is - across the border. There is nothing about any of this that is surprising, nor is there reason to believe that the socio-political risk of investing on the mainland is higher than it has been in the 161/2 years since the Tiananmen massacre. For one thing, the government is infinitely richer and more powerful, while at the same time it is being led by younger, better-educated, civilian-minded people.
For another - and there really need be no other - the people facing them across the fence are richer, better-educated and more civil-minded, too.