I’m surprised this info came out, but it doesn’t make one lick of difference. The legal system still has the same flaw, and people are still afraid the same thing will happen to them. If anything, the fact that he DID push her over makes the whole situation seem like even more of a circus of moral dearth.

At the same time, the CCP realized that Guangzhou (and then brand-new Shenzhen), with it’s distinct language, proximity to British Hong Kong, history as a base of policy innovation, and (physical and cultural) distance from Beijing, could not be firmly trusted to toe the party line and thus was not suitable as China’s flagship economic center. Assuming the Party’s interests would be better served by annointing a directly-governed municipality as China’s economic alpha city, the Party launched plans for the revitalization of Shanghai, centered on the development of Pudong as an SEZ and financial center. To some extent, then, Shanghai’s ascendancy is a byproduct of the fact that Guangdong was “not Chinese enough;” the province was clearly useful for its economic contributions but not politically reliable. It’s still not, and Guangdong’s officials have maintained a streak of independence.

There certainly remains a level of freewheeling capitalism in Guangdong (especially in Shenzhen, which was created out of thin air and created a stock exchange without central government approval) that is possibly unrivaled in China, or maybe unrivaled anywhere in the world for the last 20 years, save for Silicon Valley. All that is to say that I’m not so sure that what happens in Guangzhou will or can spread to the rest of the country. The city and the province are outliars and I think Guangdong people look to Hong Kong and the rest of the world before looking to Beijing.

You also forgot to mention Guangzhou’s brilliant and fascinating expat population. Cheers.