Consolidation and change

Compared with previous generations, Chinese people enjoy many freedoms, which are evidence of societal change. These freedoms are mainly personal rather than political, however, even though the liberties Chinese people now enjoy as Internet users also allow slightly more extensive freedom to discuss political matters than previously, as the research in this book has shown. Empowered by online consumerist discourse, netizens now have opportunities to debate in cyberspace the issues that matter to them. On the whole, these do not include political matters, except when these matters necessitate the demonstration of the national loyalty so emphatically demonstrated in the bloggers' episode in which Chinese Generation Y, the main users of Chinese cyberspace, registered their anger at Western media's analyses of censorship mechanisms in current China. The government was happy to allow, as this book argues, these demonstrations of national loyalty (see the epigraph above, for example). The collusion between the young generation and the government in this episode suggests very strongly that radical political change, such as the shift from an authoritarian to a democratic government, is not likely to take place anytime soon in China.