China (1)

The previous article from Reuters was found under "Science" for some reason. But there are clearly some important political implications in the story, I think.

It shows that common people in China might not be totally passive, leaving everything political to the ruling Communist Party. That is usually the impression you get from the media - and probably the impression the regime would like the rest of the world to have. Although there are two other interesting aspects:

1. The regime is still a totalitarian type - ready to violently suppress demonstrations that doesn't fit the regime's interests and politics. In recent time demonstrations that fit has actually been allowed, e.g. the demonstrations against Japan.
2. At the same time the government - or some parts of it - seems to be willing to recognize that there are different problems. Apparently the problems are not simply ignored by the authorities?

In a democratic country this is not a severe problem, because people are allowed to demonstrate and organize themselves. This is not only an ideal we have in western countries, it is also more or less a necessity in order to make society function, especially a human society as complex as we have today. It is necessary because any government need the feedback in order to govern in a rational way.

As China is developing economically it will become clear, that some kind of democracy is a pure necessity. One can only hope, that the government is clever enough to recognize this, and make democratic reforms in the near future. Otherwise the chinese people will probably demand it in a "less peaceful" way.

What is absolutely not needed is some idiot in the White House threatening China with military force, if they don't accept "democracy-the-american-way".