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That tends to vary with the political winds and with local politics.

Local potentates can be more or less severe . . . as the saying goes, Beijing is far away. Of course, local leaders' personalities play a part as do their personal philosophies in interpreting and implementing Beijing edicts.

On the other hand, Beijing can send out a more or less stern edict backed up with more or less Party and military support. Sessions are spent hours on end with relevant leadership committees arguing about every nuance of every word in an order from Beijing.

The Beijing Central Committee sends out mandated regulations and stances on various important issues of the day after lots of deliberation, usually. Given that it's a committee, there's some, at least hint, of an effort toward a wise, balanced response to whatever issue or crisis is the topic of the day--at least they like to appear that way.

Tienanmen was a huge stretch on that score. Once the edict from Deng came down, then the tenor was set and everyone knew the jig was up. The wiser, more alert folks scurried for cover or escape instantly. Others less quick or able manufactured alibies quickly. Everyone almost instantly learned the catch phrases to mouth in support of Beijing's new position--some with more conviction and loyalty thereto and many with less.

Sometimes, a beloved friend could say something to you on Monday that was contradicted on Tuesday or Friday because of a huge change in the edicts or tone or some such from Beijing. They weren't trying to be duplicitous, contradictory or even confusing. They were just surviving in their cultural context.

Beijing has a knee-jerk response to any hint of 'splitism' that's much stronger than American's recent responses to loss of freedoms. It's hard to think of a value generally held by most Americans that most American citizens respond to with the intensity that Beijing responds to the splitism issue with.

It's pride, nationalism, power, culture, ethnocentrism and more.

Religion has been viewed as a particularly troublesome threat to the Party's rule after they observed the fall of Eastern Europe facilitated, they are convinced, by the Roman Church. They know that genuine Christians make the best employees and officials as well as supervisors because of their diligence, fairness and honesty. But they fear their values and cohesive support of one another as well as their allegiance to God over Party.

I'm guessing that their hostility to the Jihadi's is even more fierce. Any hint of violence or use of force or arms against Party rule is met with ruthlessly and virtually instantly. Certainly in decades past, wiping out a village as an example would not have been off limits. Now, Beijing is SOMEWHAT sensitive to world opinion. However, control of the media; obsfucation honed to an art form; use of appearances to hide or present anything . . . world opinion is considered a bothersome hindrance but usually as no match for Chinese skills at fooling it or ignoring it.

It will be most interesting to see how China relates to the rise of Islam as well as to the coming world government. The Bible hints that the world leader's alliances are not all that solid across the board. I can certainly imagine that true with regard to China--and all the mosre so if the puppet masters put up Islam as the interim government and philosophy to kowtow to. We shall see.

As the Chinese might say--an interesting time to be alive.