China's journey to the point where it put a man in space and hosted the Olympic Games has been bumpy. Over the years there have been explosions of public frustration, though none have toppled a government. Here are some of them:
1919
On May 4, students in Beijing protested about the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty was signed at the end of the first world war. Germany was defeated in the war, and the winning western powers gave its colony of Shandong province to Japan. The protests started out as an anti-imperialist movement but quickly turned political.
1956
Premier Zhou Enlai convinced Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chairman Mao Zedong that intellectuals should be persuaded to speak out about the country's problems, to promote development in the arts. By 1957, the Hundred Flowers Movement had millions of letters pouring into the premier's office, while Peking University students openly criticised the CCP on a 'Democracy Wall'.
1957
By July, Mao had called the movement off. More than half a million intellectuals, artists and students are thought to have been humiliated, imprisoned or jailed.