These "sudden incidents" or "mass incidents," in official parlance, are presenting Chinese officials with a serious problem that goes beyond the negative image of China they project to the outside world. The sheer numbers are noteworthy. In August 2005, the country's public security minister, Zhou Yongkang, announced that some 74,000 such events had taken place in 2004, an increase from 58,000 the year before. According to Zhou, 17 of the 74,000 involved more than 10,000 people, 46 involved more than 5,000 people, and 120 involved more than 1,000 participants. But many believe the actual figures are higher.
And given that the central authorities don't like to hear news like this, those who believe the actual figures are higher are probably right. How many local party officials are keeping inconvenient statistics to themselves?
The article goes on to note that the People's Armed Police are being trained and beefed up. Will this do any good? The PAP are largely the old rabble infantry divisions of the PLA who had their "army" badges and insignia replaced with "police" logos when they were transferred out of the army. Are the PAP really up to snuffing out serious and simultaneous "sudden incidents?"
As I've noted, for all the talk about our having insufficient troops to police 5 million angry Sunnis (and I strongly disagree), just how many troops would Peking need to suppress even half of their 1.2 billion people? Or even a quarter? Or even ten percent?!
I mean, really, 74,000 incidents in 2004! Just the high-level incidents numbered give us 520,000 protesters, at least. If the other odd 73,000 plus had only 100 people each on average, we can add 7.4 million more! So there might be 7.5 million people protesting in 2004. If the numbers are not under-reported.
Really, just what is a "normal" amount of protest in China that the body politic just shrugs off as the cost of doing business? And when does it get serious?
