[user104658]

Originally Posted by bitontheslide

i stand by my earlier post, china will quash any protest ruthlessly

And I stand by my caveat; "if it's small enough". Like I said if any significant portion of the Chinese citizenry was to attempt an uprising, it wouldn't be a matter of wanting to quash it - of course they would want to - but the simple resources needed to do that effectively would be staggering. The worrying thing of course is that, with that being the case, they might resort to making a few high-profile examples in the hopes that other areas would disband in fear.

HOWEVER they do know full well that the West won't buy from them if they push too hard at that door and again, unlike Russia who can survive out in the cold for a while (not happily, but they can survive) China is ultimately still a manufacturing economy that needs a market ... they are crippled without trade.