[netcan]

"Great divergence" is not necessarily a problem for democracy. Any specific manifestation of democracy is a tool for governing despite them.

Civil war is not more likely in a democracy than a non democracy. Civil wars (I'm perhaps controversially excluding revolutionary wars such as the current Libyan or Syrian wars because they are usually wars between a regime and the The People) are rarely over political disagreement.

Most civil wars are a result of either: (1) two or more competing elites competing for power (eg James vs William; Augustus vs Anthony). (2) Ethnic/confessional divides that supersede everything else politically. For example, Lebanese Maronites are politically Maronites. They will not vote for a Druze Social-Democrat even if this is their political belief because that identification is much weaker than the Maronite one. Lebanese politics is about dividing political pies between sects.

China is probably in greater danger of 1 today than it would be if democratic and it probably wouldn't be under greater danger of 2, Chinese minorities don't want to be Chinese but they are too small even if they do identify politically entirely along ethnic lines.

[cglee]

Re #2 of your point. The divide isn't along ethnic lines; it's along economic/cultural. Huge divide between rural farmers and urban yuppies. The yuppies are like the HN crowd. But historically, China goes as the peasant class goes.

Most of the time, the government is trying to appease the peasants while encouraging the yuppies. It's a tough balance.

[firemanx]

My experience in China has been a little different. You certainly see divides along economic lines, but there are tremendous ethnic divides in China that aren't talked about outside the country, and often its these ethnic divides that create some of the worst economic divides.

Additionally, in recent years the population of China's cities has grown to be around half or more of the total Chinese population. It's not just farmers vs yuppies anymore, its non-local immigrants vs native locals. I saw this big time in Beijing, where a lot of the general working class were pissed because they had to work and ended up with crap for housing while the "natives" didn't work nearly as much - not because the natives were rich, but because they received state-funded stipends and discounted premium housing which immigrants to the city (from other parts of China) aren't eligible for.

I suppose you could consider my second point "economic", thought it's not really in the way most people would think of that term. It's a general side-effect of communist policies which still exist, though are far less publicized within the country.

[Volpe]

Is country/peasant worker vs city worker an ethnic divide? Sounds more like a class divide. (ironic in a post-maoist country)

The urbanisation figures in china are highly suspect. Given one child policy is primarily policed in the city and intentionally lax in the countryside. This coupled with the fact their census seems (unconfirmed) do NOT count unofficial residence (i.e second/third/etc children). It makes it very hard to get a real picture of China's urbanisation stats.

[patio11]

Is country/peasant worker vs city worker an ethnic divide?

The distinction you're looking for is "Han Chinese" versus "everyone else." China's outlying rural provinces have significant populations -- often pluralities or majorities -- from ethnic groups which are not Han Chinese, which is the dominant economic group in China and which is the portion of China largely winning from economic growth. For example, there are several large, predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in the border provinces, by the *stans and what have you. Plus Tibetans, etc, etc.

It is possible that this ethnic conflict eventually gets resolved like the Yamato vs. Everyone Else conflict in Japan: the nation of Japan became coextensive with Yamato Japanese and everyone basically pretends that Japan is monoethnic. (This would have been Serious News To Us for most of Janaese history.) It is also possible that China goes along a more Russian or Balkan path.

It is also possible, I suppose, that China resolves its ethnic issues by some combination of ethnic cleansing and genocide, which would not be new.

[_delirium]

On a macro-scale the non-Han are relatively small, though, especially compared to some of the other cases of multi-ethnic countries. Non-Han-Chinese make up only 8% of the PRC population, whereas non-Russians make up about 20% of Russia's current population, and made up about 40% of the USSR's.

It is true that they're much more prominent in the outlying areas; e.g. 60% of Xinjiang is non-Han. Those areas have relatively few people compared to the more populous parts of China, though; Shanghai alone has more people than all of Xinjiang. China's current strategy seems to be to take advantage of that numerical imbalance to Han-ify the outlying areas, since the smallish (in absolute numbers) non-Han population can be swamped by moving only a few percent of the people from the central cities out there.

[firemanx]

It's easy to throw out numbers like 8% until you realize that it represents over 100 million people. Per capita that may be a small number, but in the general scheme of things it means a lot of disgruntled people. I never really thought about it until I went over there and had the chance to interact with various groups, and it changed a lot of my perspective on how China functions on the inside.

[netcan]

China's ethnic groups are small, weak and concentrated in remote areas. They really are probably not a political factor. I really can't see this ever being the dividing line of a civil war. They might demand autonomy or independence but that's not really a civil war.

Any serious civil strife that could effect the political direction of the country is most likely to be of the revolutionary kind. The most likely (though still not that likely) scenario I can think of is post economic downturn combined with political scandal. It would probably be a nebulous combination/coalition of demands/factions. Pick a basket of anti regime, pro peasant, anti corruption, pro democracy, human rights. Maybe Christianity or religion in general plays a role.

I think you need to draw a line though between civil strife and revolutionary agitation. I think the urban/rural divide will most likely manifest in the latter.

[afterburner]

Had the Han ethnicity not been so dominant, though, ethnic divisions would have been more prominent.

[shareme]

It could always go the way of the 30 year civil war in Mexico or Egypt..in which case you will see a marked increase in both protests and crack downs