CHINA'S SLOW CIVIL AWAKENING

Here's hoping the Chinese people are smart enough to resist their leaders' imperialistic plans:

Behind the calamities, there are signs of change in Beijing. Though they hold one-party power, the country's leaders know that they have to respond to popular concerns in ways that were not the case in the first decades of communist rule.

The scale of discontent is in no doubt. Official figures report that there were 90,000 protests last year. Some recent demonstrations have shown the scale and volatility that such outbreaks can assume. Ten thousand people gathered to protest at the failure of unauthorised banks in Hunan province this month and a similar-sized crowd gathering in the eastern port of Ningbo outside a factory after a boy was apparently thrown from one of its windows.

The protests are single-issue affairs, and do not represent organised opposition to communist rule. Still, for a regime that puts great store in stability, such grassroots sentiment cannot be ignored, particularly when it is prompted by anger against local officials or when it spills over into attacks on government and party offices.

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