Protests far from a knockout blow for grizzled China leaders

Locals look at riot police standing in a line as they block the entrance from the main highway to the town of Haimen, Guangdong province December 22, 2011. REUTERS/David Gray

HONG KONG, (Reuters) – Like battle-hardened  boxers, China’s Communist Party leaders are leaning back on the  ropes, patiently absorbing the blows from angry village  protesters who have grabbed headlines but lack a knockout punch.

Locals look at riot police standing in a line as they block the entrance from the main highway to the town of Haimen, Guangdong province December 22, 2011. REUTERS/David Gray

Similar social uprisings have floored leaders from North  Africa and the Middle East but China’s leaders, and the country  itself, are made of sterner stuff.

Analysts say it would take an unlikely combination of blows  for any semblance of an Arab Spring to take root in China:  collapse of the economy, a breakdown of the Party system, a  comprehensive loss of trust in the central government, and a  cohesive anti-party movement in rural and urban areas.

Still, China has endured headlines that would make many an  Arab leader tremble.

Villagers in Wukan in south China chase off local officials  and barricade themselves in for a 10-day standoff. Thousands  march in Haimen city less than 160 km (100 miles )away to  protest against a power plant project. Workers stage a sit-in in  Dongguan city to the west, demanding backpay after their paper  plant closed down.

But while Arab Spring protesters have scored knockout blows  this year, economic conditions appear to have China on course  for a comfortable points decision.

After the wave of Arab Spring revolutions, analysts began  looking for markers that might be useful for predicting the next  uprising. The most common characteristics included a  disproportionately large segment of the population aged under  25, stagnating GDP per capita, and widening income inequality.

China doesn’t stand out in any of those categories. The  one-child policy means the country is aging rapidly, and the  bigger worry is potential shortages of young workers. GDP per  capita is rising steadily. Income inequality, although wide, may  narrow as Beijing mandates large minimum wage increases.

Some 80 million Communist Party members and millions more  who have benefited from China’s economic boom have little  interest in spreading social unrest that would undermine those  gains. Among China’s vast bureaucracy, where college graduates  are competing for jobs, and the People’s Liberation Army,  appetite for change is even lower.

“With civil servants and military, with their support, even  when there is extensive discontent among the general public, the  regime can still maintain its rule for quite a long period of  time,” said Kin-man Chan, associate professor at the department  of sociology at Chinese University of Hong Kong.

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Other factors favour the Party over the protesters, who lack  central organisation.
These include strong political cohesion, a system that  reinforces support for the central government over local  officials, a massive police force and fairly tight controls on  traditional and social media.

The last time the Politburo Standing Committee was seriously  split was in 1989, a divide that gave time for the democracy  movement centred on Tiananmen Square to snowball. Paramount  leader Deng Xiaoping eventually stepped in, Party secretary Zhao  Ziyang was sacked, and the movement was crushed on June 4 that  year in a bloody military crackdown that killed hundreds,  perhaps thousands.