In early November, several thousand taxi drivers went on strike in the central Chinese city of Chongqing. The drivers went back to work only after Bo Xilai, the local party boss, in a meeting broadcast live on local television and carried to web audiences all over the country, promised to help them raise their incomes.

Less than a week later, similar protests sprung up in Gansu, a north-western province, and on Hainan, the island off China's southern coast.