Don't think that the Chinese aren't also having a tough time.
China is in a very bad way.
Their economy is presently entirely and utterly dependent upon export, and they are faced with a people who have come to expect an increasing standard of living, coupled with increasing freedoms.
The problem with China has always been that the government lives in terror of the masses.
Everyone in the west cries over the Tiannemen square massacre... but those people are usually shit ignorant of the back story.
The truth was that the uprising was almost entirely college students- and that college students had to work part time jobs- the majority of which were driving short haul delivery trucks.
The government was actually very conciliatory toward the uprising, at first.
And they actually met the striking students demands...
but the students did not return to work...
Instead, they pulled the same stupid ass stunt the Solidairnosh pulled in Poland... rather than accept their victory and go back to work, they simply upped their demands... and continued to strike.
At the point the government sent in tanks, strikes were starting to spread to other cities- city stores were running out of groceries, all the supplies that a cities requires to be trucked in daily were not coming in, and the refuse not going out.
The majority of the residents of Beijing were hungry and on the brink of taking to the streets. Another week of striking and there would have been food riots in the cities.
The govenrment sent in the tanks, because the students were drunk with power and could not be relied upon to go back to work no matter what concession the government offered.
China was days away from an urban-wide revolution-
I know its not the populist view... but the govenrment had no choice but to send in the tanks and re-establish order- and get services and goods flowing again.
And under similar circumstance- the US would send out the national guard without a second thought.
Now, the urban chinese are similarly accustomed to things getting noticably better..
And they are still extremely naive about the fundamental responsibilities that are concurrent with greater freedoms.
The Chinese government understands that they are faced with a population that has precious little experience with the power of democratic reform...
if the masses opt to demonstrate, history shows that they are likely to not bargain in good faith, nor understand the critical importance of accepting a workable compromise and getting back to work.
All urban societies are similarly brittle... just weeks away from running out of everything and the total collapse of economic flow.
So China is treading a fine line- desperate to keep their own economy going by trying to focus more of their production inward- which requires the creation of a consumerist population. and trying to control information so as to keep people from knowing the full scope of internal problems and to obfuscate the formation of movements and rallies.
But their biggest obstacle is their own culture of graft and corruption.
It's not a government problem- every level of Chinese society is rife with bribery, scams and cheating.
Its endemic to their national psyche.
The Melamine and lead filled toys are just the tip of the iceberg...
You can not even buy an extension cord in China that will hold firmly onto a plug- because the manufacturers wont' spring for the extra tenth of a cent per part for
springy metal contacts.
China is, at present, a paper tiger.
Or, more aptly... a collandar in lieu of a wok.
They look good as long as vast sums of foreign capital are being poured in faster than it can leak thru the holes...
But as soon as the cash flow slackens, you can see that they do not hold water.
China has been a nation for thousands of years, and has NEVER dominated the world... in spite of having invented everything from the compass needle to gunpowder.
They are unlikely to deveolp the chops to do so just because they have started to dabble in capitalism.
The only truly stable and productive democracies in the world today, outside of europe, are all former colonies of the British Empire.
It takes hundreds of years of exposure to the ethos of a capitalist democracy for another culture to really begin to understand the delicate balance of freedom with obligation that makes democracies and open markets function effectively.
China has not had that background, Has little concpetion of the scottish enlightenment thinking that underpins any modern exercise in rule of law with maximal personal freedom.
The Chinese people are children playing with fire.
And their government knows this.