Quick Correction, the Chinese New Year is on 14 Feb this year, not last week. This whole discussion on economic growth and the shift towards democracy in China is not that applicable. As long as the Chinese government can keep pace with the revolution of rising expectations, things will remain the same. When the Tiananmen protests occurred in 1989, it was due to popular discontent over rising inflation rates, not the desire for more democracy per se. If the desire for democracy is so strong, Wei Jingsheng's call for the "fifth modernisation" during the earlier "Democracy Wall" movement would attract a much larger following. It never really took off. Wu Bangguo has made it clear that China would never adopt Western-style democracy.
I agree with the point on how the Chinese political elites do not like mass movements. As evidenced by Chinese history, mass movements usually lead to chaos, something that has to be avoided at all costs, such as the Taiping and Boxers rebellions, and the Cultural Revolution

A shallow article and misnamed.Democracy is not a religion, it is a form of government which is difficult to apply,has many faults and requires generations of a civil society to produce the necessary citizen consciousness and involvement.It also happens to be the best form of government so far developed.

China does not even come close to these criteria and probably never will in it's present form.It will disintergrate into competing warlord governed fragments as it has done frequently in the past.

We make the flawed assumption that the Chinese want democracy. Most Chinese have no real concept of what democracy is, nor do they really care. The current Communist government has delivered them greater peace, stability and prosperity than China has seen in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. Any government that can do that is fine with the vast majority of Chinese.

All the Chinese do know is that it takes strength to lead their nation. Change is generally considered bad, as in the past it has led to chaos and destruction, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Who can blame them for wanting to maintain the status quo after such traumatic events? For the Chinese, a shift to democracy will be chaotic, painful and threatening, and will jeopardise the hard-won economic prosperity they are adding to every day. No, the Chinese are happy to get rich, and if a Communist government can guarantee that and keep China peaceful and stable, then there will be no meaningful attempts to make a change. We need to stop assuming what is best for China, because their historical experiences have pointed them in a direction far different from ours.