Over the last 2 years, there has been a discernible change in how the Chinese government works with unrest, uncertainty, and historically uncomfortable issues.

It isn’t 100% yet, but as point out through a few incidents in Xiamen, Shanghai, and the many cities that recently experienced taxi strikes, the government is moving away from a hard line stance to a stance that involves dialogue and negotiations.

More interestingly though, is that these changes are taking place publicly, and whereas other agencies were responsible from cleaning the daily news of any events, the stories are now entering the media on a regular basis.

Mass unrest shocks China does a very good job of loking at how this process has evolved and how the new approach is working:

The government is trying to set up a negotiation mechanism to deal with incidents of mass unrest. Three days after the Chongqing cab drivers’ strike, the secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, met with representatives of cab drivers and other citizens to listen to their complaints and suggestions. The meeting was televised and broadcast on the radio and the Internet.

Gao Xiaodong, deputy director general of Chongqing Public Security Bureau, said a new philosophy was needed to deal with such incidents. The key step is to set up effective channels and negotiation mechanisms to allow people to protect their interests. Only in this way can conflicts of interests be resolved according to law and the principle of equality.

An encouraging step, this step has surely been a difficult one to take for some and the time required to build the level of trust needed was surely one of the largest items of focus.

Going forward, we can only hope that this process will continue to take steps forward and will be employed on a wider range of issues.

While there were glitches along the way, we all know the recent strikes could have gone a lot worse, and with teachers now going on strike in a number of areas, I believe we have another opportunity for parties to exercise restraint, to keep the lines of communication open, and to develop solutions that last.