Just as the two days of snow we get once every February throw our infrastructure into unmanageable disorder, so the prospect of temperatures above 24º produces a state of slow-motion unrest.
But many potential émigrés, not surprisingly, are working on a Plan B in case China's economic growth begins to slow, widespread social unrest takes hold or the political winds begin to blow against them.
Although a new constitution was adopted in 1991 and the first multiparty elections were held in 1993, the Conté government's move toward political and economic liberalization was slow, and civil unrest and protest continued during the 1990s.
During 'boom' phases, much is possible, while 'bust' phases result in mass unemployment and social unrest Slow recovery from the economic crisis, while the recovery is hampered even more by strong fluctuations in growth and in price levels.
China is now confronting widespread social unrest, slowing economic growth, increasing divisions within domestic public opinion on the issue of the country's political trajectory and rampant official corruption as revealed by the Bo Xilai scandal.
The regime of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was just too dumb and slow to manage the unrest.
But the proposal has now gotten caught up in a wider dispute between the government and senior police officers over the rioting, including the issue of who bears the primary responsibility for a slow response to the unrest, and whether the government's plans to save money by cutting police strength by thousands of officers continue to make sense.
An education-ministry official says concerns about possible unrest are slowing efforts to separate the hybrid universities from their parent bodies.
-- Protesters angered by the grand jury decision in Ferguson, Missouri, disrupted Oakland on Monday in a slow-moving wave of unrest that halted traffic on freeways and impeded city streets in many directions.
'While the country has endured recent unrest, which could slow growth in the short term, once the political situation has settled down, we believe Egypt will regain its growth trajectory,' they say.
