Deep Thought About Modern China

Boing Boing flags "a kind of masterclass on contemporary Chinese politics, authoritarianism, liberalism and dissidence" from wunderkind Kaiser Kuo. This explains many aspects of the modern political scene with a social contract between the ordinary Han Chinese masses and non-radical intellectuals of China:

a kind of bargain between the authoritarian technocrats of the Chinese state and its people: "let us govern as we wish, and we will keep chaos at bay and sustain the growth that is lifting you out of poverty."

It also makes the pointed observation that one of the reason that we don't see a lot of visible signs of dissatisfaction with the regime (outside of Hong Kong where people have a certain amount of insulation from the regime's totalitarian practices to which they are clinging with all their might) is that dissenters end up dead or incarcerated, including more than a million members of ethnic minorities in concentration camps there, so the notion that "the Chinese people like their government" is somewhat overstated even if it gets across an important point.