How convenient to have a two-party system! So you can always blame the previous administration for anything you did wrong. BTW, didn't Americans vote for Bush for his second term AFTER the Iraq war? We are not sure who will be the president of the U.S. coming this November, are we?

Even with a one-party system, China can also correct the wrongs it has done previously. For example, during the Cultural Revolution, many monasteries in Tibet have been damaged; CCP has acknowledged the mistakes that they have made during the CR, and repaired thousands of monasteries since then.

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What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. --CHL

Since 500 years ago, the west started setting fire everywhere in the world, after 500 years, the west cannot even bear a torch. --Annonymous

Yes, it wasn't widely reported, but I think that's because it wasn't really an "attack", just one of many scuffles as protestors tried to seize or extinguish the torch. The only thing that made Jin Jing different from, say, Konnie Huq, was that Jin Jing is disabled. It looks like Jin Jing is now being made use of for propaganda purposes - "look at those evil pro-Tibeters, they attack disabled people!" (Not that I have a particular problem with that - any Western government would be delighted to use the same kind of propaganda...) So now Chinese people think that French people are anti-China? The propagandists of both sides, "pro-Tibet" and "pro-China" should feel happy with a job well done.

There's no comparison with "tank man". "Tank man" was risking death, or, at the very least, imprisonment. Jin Jing was risking a few scratches.

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No Fear No Hate No Pain No Broken Hearts

Well, I think everyone understanding how a democracy works knows that there is a right for every group of people to govern themselves if they want to and they are willing to do it without breaking laws.

Now, the thing I find a little hippocretical (spelling?) is that France only 50 years ago tried as long as they could to keep Vietnam which isn't even a boarding nation. And the imperialist era ended not more than 100 years ago.

I would approve the independence of Tibet but there are a lot of things going on and nobody should expect China to just let go Tibet in a week. I hope they are going to but and if they are that is going to take more than two days and a group of angry frenchmen.

As you may have noticed, I am a member of a third party , Libertarian party.
I think the greater the plurality of parties and ideas, the better chance that things will not go wrong. How does a one-party system work efficiently for the people? How is China represented by the people? The name " people`s republic" denotes the idea that China is governed by the people, but this seems to be the farthest from the truth. The US makes mistakes as well as China, but I don`t think that something like the cultural revolution could not have happened in the US, because of our multi-party system would never have put that kind of power in to the hands of a few elite long enough to do something so self-destructive. Again, I think China has chanfed a lot for the good, definitely since the end of the CR in 76 , but I think it has a long way to go in the way of improving human rights.

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"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."
-Ambrose Bierce
A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle. - Vique
If there is a God...I think most reasonable people might agree that he's at least incompetent and maybe, just maybe, doesn't give a shit..." -George Carlin

Your impression is a little bit outdated. With development of mobile phones, digital cameras and the internet, people in China have more chance to voice their opinions, which have changed things for the better in some cases. I'll give you the example of the Sun Zhigang Incident (which took place around 3 years ago, oh I forgt the exact time). He was a young man from Hubei province working in a newly-booming city of Guangdong. One evening he was stopped in the street by the local "police assistants" (they were not formally on the police staff, but actually employed by the police station on temporary basis, thus having no power to enforce the law). Sun Zhigang was detained for not carrying his Temporary Residence Certificate (which was originally devised to facilitate social security). Sun never saw the light of another day. On the next morning, when his friends went to the hospice (or penitentiary), they found him dead with severe bruises all over the body. The authorities reported that he was tortured to death by his fellow roomates (sometimes they were ex-convicts). After the Southern Weekend published this news, all the people in the country got righteoulsly wrathful at the cruelty of the local authorities in their law enforcement. Netizers attacked vehementlt at the government, and they also built an on-line memorial for people to express their feelings and donate money to Sun's families. A lot of sholars and law specialists voiced their criticism on the inhuman nature of the forced hospice and repatriation regulations (since they violated the citizens' right to free migration), which were originally designed, in the planned-economy times, for charity purposes in the 1950's an1960's and then evolved into a convenient means to keep cities safe and presentable (one can find traces of the land-bondage philosophy of the feudal society). All the protests on the internet converged together to form a torrent, which in the end rsulted in the termination of the vicious penitentiary regulations. Sun's families also got an apology and a big compensation from the government, much to the consolement of the people although we know that however huge an amount is not worth a life.

I'm citing this example to show that things are changing in China nowadays. With progress of technology, it is less easy to control public opinion. And given the influence from the outside world, the new leaders of the Chinese government are more aware that they should pay heed to the people's opinion. I have restrained optimism in the improvement of human rights in China.

The problem with Chinese propaganda is the heavy use of censorship. Chinese propaganda is truthful in most parts but they don't want to leave any details that is unfavorable to the Chinese government. Unfortunately with the news of Sun Zhigang, the way he died or the way he is captured probably is unfavorable towards the government so the CCP has nothing to say about it. Alot of Chinese are already skeptical of what they read in their newspaper anyways, because you are ready half of a story.

Yes. It's human nature to cover things unfavorable to themselves. With the case of Sun Zhigang, the Southern Weekend revealed as much details as its journalists could dig out. This newspaper is in a habit of exposing the skeleton in the cupboard and often offends the government. It often speaks out for the disadvantaged people and sometimes get into trouble. Its editors and reporters are examples of free-thinking Chinese. We have quite a few such newspapers.

As for the skeptical Chinese readers of official media, we have developed ways to filter the news for what is really going on. The offical media has its own way to say things, we don't take the "way" seriously, but we do pay attention to the substance, the gist, hidden in the words.

With all the above said, most Chinese don't want to pursue drastic social change.
Democracy is a beautiful thing. But we cannot expect it to fall on us overnight. We have to work for it progressively, from inside, not under the pressure from the self-righteous outside (which will cause strong backlashes as you see now).

I agreed with many of the points you raised here, and I am also glad to see that you realized that China is improving as a whole.

I would also acknowledged that China has a long way to go in terms of improving human rights, among other things. But as I have said before, this takes time, and most likely needs to be resolved by Chinese people, instead of under foreign interference and pressure. Chinese people (note, not the government) have a history of resisting foreign pressure. I think the current wave of demonizing China is extremely counter-productive.

You asked how China is represented by its people. I can tell you what I have learned on how Chinese legislature system works:
People elects delegates to the National People's Congress, who will vote to enact or block laws and policies. The NPC will also vote for the top government officials, who will nominate local official candidates, and these local officials need to be approved by the local People's Congresses. Traditionally, the NPC was a symbol of rubber stamps, but that has changed a lot in the past few years. Gone was the unanimous vote in favor of the candidates nominated. It is not that uncommon nowadays to see that some candidates received more than 10% of votes disfavoring their election (I think >50% votes against the candidate would not be a distant future). In terms of enacting laws, the percentage of opposition can often be much higher.

There are still no direct elections at the county, provincial or presidential levels. However, direct elections are implemented at the village level already. This was unthought of in the past. Political reform takes time, and needs a lot more caution to proceed than the economic reform, particularly since China is facing a lot of internal challenges and certainly not the most friendly international environment nowadays.

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What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. --CHL

Since 500 years ago, the west started setting fire everywhere in the world, after 500 years, the west cannot even bear a torch. --Annonymous

The disheartening thing is that I heard of several cases on the media in which candidates hired hooligans or gangsters to assault their rivals in the villiage level elections. They regard the position of the villiage leader as a lucrative means to take bribes. With the process of urbanization and development of rural tourism, the land (which is of collective ownership in name) value is soaring in some parts of the countryside. It is reported that some villiage leaders are relinquishing the land which the villiager are cultivating at ridculously low prices, while giving the villiagers scanty compensation. The media call this as "selling one's birthright at a bowl of lentil stew" and ask "who get the stew?"
China has a long way to go to attain to democracy.