Interestingly enough, the average Chinese obeys or doesn't obey the law based on the likelihood he will be caught. I think his thesis, that Chinese are rapidly losing (without having completely lost) their fear of the government is correct. It's complicated.
On the one hand, they believe what they are taught in school - that without the Communist Party, China would not exist as a unified state today. On the other, they seem to have very little respect for the laws and regulations put out by the government. They will flout the law at every - and I mean every - opportunity. They respect the government, but at the same time, they have very little respect for its edicts.
I think the real problem is that any authoritarian system where major segments of the population have lost their fear of the government faces the challenge of potential competitors for power. Not to remake China as a democracy, but to take the resources that are now monopolized by Communist Party cadres for themselves. In other words, the risk to the Party is that of a dynasty change. Let me just say that dynasty changes in China have tended to be very violent. The 1949 revolution saw millions executed in the immediate aftermath. Given the ruthlessness of the Party, its replacement would have to every bit as ruthless to prevent a counter-revolution.
It's hard to imagine what potential elements in society outside the military could muster the power that could lead to a dynasty change and how that new center of power might be as ruthless as the Communist Party has been.
I think the potentially destabilizing impact of a major military setback is a major reason the Chinese elite won't make a move against Taiwan. For them, losing a war for Taiwan could mean losing much more at home.
A very interesting point. When I was in China I was amazed at the open disregard most Chinese people have for the law. While they do maintain a healthy fear of offending the state, they think nothing of any other crime, except how likely it is it will cause a repercussion.
Americans don't understand this, because they're the kind of people who will sit at a red light at 2AM, when they're the only car on the road, and wait for it to turn green.
In China, I saw people do and say things to cops that would have you tasered and locked up in seconds here. Not that the Chinese cops aren't brutal when the time calls for it, but it seems that only crimes that threaten the state draw violence. I saw a group of 60 odd well dressed, middle aged protesters, who may have been Falun Gong, rounded up by the People's Armed Police, and they were quite rough with them. They were herding them like cattle, with cops standing at the periphery of the group, barking like dogs and using batons on those who weren't huddling to the middle. They were all plainly terrified.
I've never seen an American react to a cop with the sheer cringing terror that I saw in those Chinese. Yet in almost every other case, people are very rude to the cops, and seem to ignore or berate them at will. We expect our cops to generally be civil with us, and we are usually civil with them. That concept doesn't seem to exist in China.
China performed more than 3400 executions in 2004. It was 90% of the total worldwide. Including executions for non violent "white collar" crimes.
Yes indeed......they should fear getting caught.