That confidence was reflected in a poll published last year by the Washington-based Pew Research Center, which found 86% of Chinese satisfied with their country's direction. It was the highest rate of satisfaction among 24 countries surveyed. (By contrast, 23% of Americans described themselves as satisfied with their country's direction.)
"The younger the people, the more they support the Chinese government," said Xu Wu, who first wrote about what he calls the Chinese "cyber-nationalists."
A Beijing native who was a student at Tiananmen in 1989, Xu believes that the government can't necessarily count in the long term on the support of the fenqing, or angry youth, as they are sometimes known.
"They are like a double-edged sword without a handle: very difficult to control," Xu said.
A prolonged recession that leaves large numbers of young people unemployed, for example, could radically change their sentiments.
Michael Anti, 34, a Nanjing-born blogger, also believes that the younger generation is just biding its time.
"The Chinese are very practical," he said. "They know if they protest right now it will destroy their middle-class lifestyle. But when the timing is right, nobody will refuse democracy."
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barbara.demick@latimes.com
Eliot Gao and Nicole Liu of The Times' Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.
