BEIJING  The call to action shot across mobile phones and Internet chat sites, urging people to converge on 13 Chinese cities to demand an end to corruption, inflation and the strictures of authoritarian rule. “The Chinese people do not have the patience to wait any longer,” said one message.

The anonymous organizers got a sizable turnout  but in China, most of those who poured into squares and shopping centers were police officers and plainclothes security agents.

Two months of upheaval in the Mideast have cast doubt on the staying power of all authoritarian governments. But in China calls for change are so far being met with political controls wielded by authorities who, even during a period of rising prosperity and national pride, have not taken their staying power for granted.

The nearly instantaneous deployment of the police to prevent even notional gatherings in big cities the past two weeks is just one example of what Chinese officials call “stability maintenance.” This refers to a raft of policies and practices refined after “color revolutions” abroad and, at home, tens of thousands of demonstrations by workers and peasants, ethnic unrest, and the spread of mobile communications and broadband networking.