China’s system of crushing dissent internally through direct threats works pretty well. There’s a reason why there are almost never any public protests in China and it’s simple. If you protest, China will identify you and the police will come knocking no your door with some paper for you to sign. The paper will be an implied threat along the lines of if you agree not to stir up any further public conflicts and they won’t arrest you and torture you.
And of course the same goes for all speech online. All of it is monitored and anyone critical of the government is quickly silenced. In that case the police don’t have to come to your door because they can just delete whatever it was you said that they don’t like. But if they don’t like what you said or if it generates attention, the police will still come to your door.
Even the most powerful people in China,…
