The idea that formed the cornerstone for much of the West’s analysis of China for the past two decades was that as China opened up its economy the political system would inevitably follow. But Beijing has never had any interest in implementing US-style neoliberalism.

Some months ago, Overland published an essay in which (as a scholar of Buddhist non-violent resistance) I detailed the now 120 self-immolations of Tibetan monks, nuns and lay-people, a number not including the case of an Englishman, a young man whom I knew and who was also an ordained monk in the same Tibetan Buddhist tradition as the majority of his Tibetan cohorts.

Within a single week in China, a man in a wheelchair at Beijing International Airport ignited a small explosion and a street vendor died at the hands of urban management agents. The two events were completely independent of each other yet they are deeply related: illustrations of the social reality for those living on the margin of Chinese society.

The Australian newspaper continues to speak breathlessly of a Chinese Griff nach der Weltmacht. In the latest instalment, ‘China’s irresistible power surge’, Rowan Callick writes: China has broken out. After countless “dragon rising” conferences and speeches … the past few weeks have seen something new: the most important shift so far in the 21st century. […]