"The country sees tens of thousands of protests every year.... Most are local, aimed at issues like pollution.... China’s leaders are thought to tolerate a hum of protest..."

"... perhaps even welcome it within limits, so as to 'siphon off popular discontent without destabilizing the system as a whole'.... China’s leaders know that they cannot be totally indifferent to public will. But, without genuine elections, citizens have few ways to convey their points of anger. Tolerating some protest gives leaders a way to head off dissent, and to allow citizens to feel heard, before anger boils over. The official response is often 'much less rigid and more managerial than is often presumed'...."

 Writes Max Fisher, in "The Long Odds Facing China’s Protesters/Popular protests are more easily begun than ever before, but they are more likely to dissipate, too" (NYT).

"Why do some dictators fall to public protest and others don’t?... Since 1900... about 20 autocracies have risen out of sweeping social revolutions. These include the Soviet Union, Iran’s Islamic Republic and Communist-led China.... The Soviet Union made it to age 69.... Iran is also, for the moment, proving surprisingly resilient against a nationwide, monthslong protest movement.... It’s not that such systems govern better... Revolutionary movements typically uproot every aspect of the old order, from business leaders to officer corps to administrative bureaucracies. As the revolution fills these out with its own, it is left with few internal rivals or threats.... And revolutionary features that lend resilience... are especially pronounced in China: A deeply institutionalized party bureaucracy. Internally enforced hierarchies of power. Pervasive political control of security and military forces. Deep party roots in everything from business boardrooms to local village affairs...."