I spent a lot of time talking with people in the Haidian District in Beijing. This area is contains the two most prominent (and many, many lesser) universities in China so it's interesting to see the general opinion of people around there.

The unfortunate part is that it's a whole lot of apathy. I'm sure it's not easy, even for a foreigner, to find the heart of some people willing to speak or move against the Chinese government, but so many who I ran in to were casually trying to remain in their own world disjoint from the government. They feel a little rebellious just to support the stores that sell ironic Mao Zeodong merchandise and love to mildly mention that the government is really not that great here. That's about the depth of what I actively observed.

I'll disclaim that I didnt' spend much time talking to those in what would have been the most charged fields (politics or philosophy, perhaps), but the general apathy was sort of disheartening.

It's not all negative though. The educated Chinese are largely embracing the internet and desire to involve themselves more. For many, they give you a surprised look when you ask them about bypassing the firewall: you mean you don't have access to a proxy? Really? I thought everyone did. If this is the face of the new Tank Man, it's definitely going to be a different ride, but the transformative power of an enormous information pipeline plugged into the future leaders of your country still seems pretty portent.

And ethnic strife would need to be the topic of a whole essay. China has cultural problems there, too.

Maybe, maybe not -- we'd be the last to know. I suspect a lot of people just quietly disappear, like Zhiyong. But their carefully crafted public image of beaming, docile support for the government seems hollow from a nation that housed between 5 and 7 revolutions in the 20th century, depending on how you count.