China takes great pains to regulate Internet users within its border, but civil unrest remains largely uncensored—and helps the government gauge public sentiment.
HONG KONG—Last year, I met a Chinese graduate student on a tour of the northeastern United States before his first day at Harvard. At the time, news about the purge of Bo Xilai, a princeling and member of China’s Central Politburo, was still making waves in China.
