My concern about this kind of monitoring is not about state spying on me, but not trusting that they have professional and responsible people doing it. Who knows what kid they have doing the spying, or that the data does not end up somewhere else.

Weibo is too big in China to end to this, especially since obviously any other app trying to take its market share will face the same restrictions.

I believe the ordinary citizens there will do whatever they are told to do - whether that is to eat grass, or to accept the closure of missile program, or to unite with the south.

Important thing would be to have someone with (however fake) authority to tell it to them before it's too late.

Once the regime collapses uncontrollably, then it will be quite difficult for outsiders or local warlords to build that credibility to tell the general public anything.

I think a relevant example (though not directly equivalent) to study and learn from, would be the demise of Soviet Union

I doubt that DPRK has similar internal structures as USSR did that the people can rely on for some continuity, if the state does collapse like that.

Might relate to something I experienced couple of weeks ago.

As part of registering a business here, we had to choose a bank for that. Our consultant initially suggested Bank of China, since they have done lot of similar cases with them in past and it was supposed to be easier than any other bank.

But then on sudden notice it turned upside own, as BOC Kunming branch had just been visited by authorities and they are now required (or choose to) apply so much scrutiny to things like business account openings, that our consultant advised to choose any other bank than BOC.

If I remember correctly, the new policy from BOC would have required me to legalize more documents from my home country just to open the bank account.

And that would basically force me to fly home and back just to get the papers - something that I will need to do anyway for related work permit, but that I'm not planning to do until next winter.

Well today it happened, that we were just getting on zebra crossing on green light, when (a bit out of place looking) aunty controlling traffic waved us to stop, while simultaneously waving a bus making right turn to come ahead.

The bus driver wasn't going anywhere though, and soon enough the aunty's colleague ran to the scene and in front of the bus just in case the driver would try to obey the directions from the epicly failing traffic controller.

While there have been quite many improvements (as mentioned in this thread), perhaps attaining the civilized status requires a bit more than planting those "Civilized Kunming" posts all over the city. Might have gone a bit overboard with them.