If Beijing’s authority can wobble in the way that we are now seeing, might it one day actually collapse or be overthrown?
Many years ago, I remember suggesting to a close student of modern China that perhaps people there yearned to be free, as people did in other totalitarian states. I had not realised that I was triggering a mild explosion. He began to splutter and went a surprising shade of purple: “Nonsense! You don’t get it – they’re different. The Han Chinese love their system. Love it!”
This always seemed somewhat doubtfSource : ul, the idea that people in China were somehow fundamentally opposed to the idea of controlling their own lives, and actively in favour of following the orders of others on pain of death.