Thus Chinese feel inherently insecure. There is no welfare net. The vast majority of Chinese are impoverished workers or impoverished rural folk. They don't respect Chinese government institutions, and here corruption is a key.
In Zheng's view, if China were a democracy, the ousted Chongqing Communist Party boss Bo Xilai would be elected president. This is because he had a populist style and engaged in direct income redistribution.
Much of what Bo did was illegal, but there is not a big tradition of respect for the law under communist rule in China.
In this sober analysis, both leftism and nationalism have deep social roots in China, but liberalism is a thing for intellectuals and elites.
The biggest task, in Zheng's view, is that China develop its middle class. "The government is strong, the people are weak," the good professor says. "The government is rich, the people are poor.
"The Chinese middle class does not have institutional protection. It has to pay for everything, education, healthcare."
Although he says he is overall an optimist, Zheng feels "there is a real risk that China could experience a period of social chaos. There is a race between reform and social uprising.
"The most important thing is to grow the middle class. Democracy today would mean more violence, more nationalism. How to manage democratisation is the key task. Nationalism could kill democracy."
And most of the dynamics that govern these matters are internal to China. American policy is not the worry here. Chinese politics is the worry.
