Chile’s 2011 education protests also received considerable attention in China, especially following the wave of Arab Spring demonstrations earlier in the year. The Chilean protests were listed by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences as one of the top events in Latin America in 2011.  Although they had little chance of provoking similar activity across the Pacific (despite comparable concerns in China regarding education access and quality), they did expand to include broader interest groups and issues — from constitutional reform to a revamped tax system. Chile’s protests also sparked education-related demonstrations throughout the Latin America, as noted by CASS scholars.

 

Comments on the Brazil protests by users of Weibo, China’s Twitter/blog hybrid, have focused on the role of transit fees in provoking the demonstrations. They make comparisons between Chinese and Brazilian reactions to transit fare increases, for example. The Brazilians, one Weibo blogger notes, are “all riled up about a 20 centavo (50 cents RMB) transit hike and went out on the streets and protested against their government. Meanwhile in Beijing, we kept our cool in the face of a huge increase in cab fare.” Another netizen remarked that “in Brazil, protests broke out due to a trivial transit hike. Here we’d have a 30 percent increase in transit prices and the experts would consider it ‘normal’ and we’d be too jaded to even complain. Compared to our fellow developing country, China ought to be proud of itself.”