When the young Mao Tse-tung agitated for revolution, he found a vivid way to get his point across to an uneducated audience: He picked up a single chopstick and snapped it in two. Then he picked up a handful of chopsticks: They would not break. Thus he showed that so long as everyone stood side by side, no force could withstand the tide of revolution. By gathering together China’s scattered, indignant chopsticks, Mao finally was able to ascend Tiananmen—the Gate of Heavenly Peace — on Oct. 1, 1949, and announce the establishment of his republic. Whether chopsticks come singly or in a handful is now an issue in China again. Mao’s successors, however, do the opposite of what he advocated, mobilizing immense resources to keep chopsticks from gathering together. The government knows that angry chopsticks are everywhere, but as long as they stay scattered, it believes it can break them in two, whatever their numbers. Thus it is that “stability maintenance” has become a key term in contemporary China. The government does not make public what it spends to maintain stability, but popular estimates go as high as 600 billion yuan. As mass protests become more frequent, that figure can only increase.
more from Yu Hua at NPQ here.