Unrest in Egypt: Will It Spread to China?

The Wall Street Journal points out that China "isn't immune to Nile fever". China's GDP per capita is one-third of Egypt's, and scores worse on income inequality. The main catalyst for the Cairo riots seems to be the high inflation that has consumed the country for years now. Should the Chinese inflation rate rise, it's entirely possible that we will see the same reactions there. Already, the real-estate bubble in major cities across China is one of the hot topics and biggest sources of friction.

As is usual with instability abroad, the Chinese government has responded to the event by censoring news about the riots. Weibo (China's more "harmonious" knock-off version of Twitter) and Sina.com have blocked any mention of the riots from their search results. (Baidu, another major Chinese search engine, does have some articles about the riots). Government-run media like Xinhua, People's Daily, and the English-language China Daily report only that the UN has called for "order" in Cairo.

Beijing is right to be worried. Nearly every dynasty in China's history has been undone at least in part by popular uprisings. A rebel army led by peasant soldier Li Zicheng took over Beijing in 1644, precipitating the fall of the Ming Dynasty. The Qing dynasty was weakened by both a pseudo-Christian Taiping rebellion and ethnic minority revolts, leading to its complete collapse in 1911. The list goes on. There is no reason to think that the current regime is immune to the patterns of history.

I don't think that the riots in Egypt will directly influence Chinese citizens. As a recent article in Time points out, the Chinese do not view citizens of faraway Egypt as brethren and are unlikely to pay particular attention to the riots going on there. While internet censorship in China is fairly easy to get around (and none of the English-language coverage is blocked), it is unlikely that the majority of Chinese will care enough to look. However, the catalysts that led to the Cairo riots--high unemployment and inflation--could occur in China very soon.