China: Specter of rural revolt · Global Voices
Luisetta Mudie

Rounding up this year's National People's Congress (NPC), China Confidential says that while it's not democratic, it is far more than a “rubber stamp”, providing a window into the fears and concerns of the ruling Communist Party. Summing up the military's fears, s/he says: “It is one thing to mow down out-of-control students and intellectuals in Beijing, many of whom are anyhow seen by army types as belonging to a historically privileged bureaucratic class, and something else entirely to crush a widespread rural rebellion. This is the specter–the ghost of Mao and the awesome power that he unleashed, one could say– that haunts the Great Hall of the People (where the NPC convenes each year) and secretly terrifies all of China.”