Reply #5: The leadership of a de-legitimized party now rides the tiger of exploding expectations [View All]

The overwhelming majority of China's citizens want a better life, which for most of that majority means more stuff. Over a billion people want beef and refrigerators and computers and plasma TVs and (eventually) cars and houses.

Who will tell them that these are no longer options in the face of massive threats from climate not blatantly obvious at the moment of any such pronouncement? And who will tell them that their investment in such things, particularly cars and all that automobile culture implies, was a mistake and they must not exercise the privileges which come with ownership? Not apparatchiks well aware of China's long history of cultural and economic booms followed by rebellion, revolution and massive collapse.

Chinese citizens already tolerate massive, inescapable pollution in water, air and food. While these problems have indeed caused substantial low-grade unrest, particularly in the countryside, these incidents have yet to show any sign that ordinary Chinese have even begun to question the fundamental assumptions of continuous growth. They may picket or riot against the factory that poisons their water or air, but that doesn't mean that more than a few have begun to think through what their hard work and ambition and understandable desire for a better life may bring them to.