Every year brings official reports of increasing rural protest in China, such as villagers petitioning higher officials, peaceful demonstrations, as well as violent clashes between protesters and police. Many international journalists and researchers interpret these reports as a warning of impending social instability in the Chinese countryside. Yet, for the moment, these protests do not threaten the authority of the central leadership in Beijing. Indeed, much of the rural resistance is directed at local officials at the village, township, and even county levels, and support for the central leadership is high among rural residents. While the number of reports describing these incidents in great detail continues to increase, few attempt to adequately explain this contradiction or put rural resistance in China into a broader theoretical and empirical framework.

Kevin O'Brien and Lianjiang Li directly address this issue by explaining how rightful resistance in rural China occurs. The authors make an...

You do not currently have access to this content.