Egypt's Desire for Freedom Wakes Up China -- Jasmine Revolution Rolls On

Jittery Chinese authorities staged a concerted show of force on Sunday to squelch a mysterious online call for a "Jasmine Revolution" -- protests apparently modeled on the pro-democracy demonstrations then sweeping the Middle East.

The call had first circulated on Saturday on Boxun.com, a US-based Chinese-language news site. Unsigned, it urged people to gather at 2 p.m. in Beijing, Shanghai, and 11 other major cities. Many activists said they had no idea who was behind it and weren't sure what to make of it.

The authorities took no chances. Activists were detained, police flooded the streets, some mobile text-messaging services were cut, and internet postings about the call were censored. In Beijing, police took away at least three people near the designated gathering spot -- outside a McDonald's on the capital's busiest shopping street -- one of whom had tried to lay down white jasmine flowers, while hundreds of onlookers milled about. In Shanghai, police led away three people near the planned protest spot after a scuffle that appeared aimed at grabbing passers-by's attention.

The campaign never gained much traction among ordinary citizens. The odds of anything resembling an overthrow were always slim, given Beijing's tight grip on media and the internet -- and the memory of 1989, when a student-led pro-democracy movement was crushed by the military with hundreds, perhaps thousands, killed.

The episode was less a revolution than a stress test: a demonstration of how quickly, and with how little provocation, the Chinese security apparatus could flood the zone and erase an idea from the public square.