IN HUNAN province last August, Tang Hui was sentenced to 18 months in a labour camp. Her crime was to demand tougher sentences for the men who had kidnapped and raped her 11-year-old daughter. In days gone by, Ms Tang would simply have disappeared. In the age of the microblog, thousands of incensed middle-class people took up her case. Ms Tang was released, and on January 7th the government announced that the labour-camps system would be reformed (see article).

In Guangzhou last week, allegedly under orders from the provincial propaganda chief, an editorial in Southern Weekend, a reformist newspaper, was altered before publication (see article). The original called for greater respect of rights enshrined in China’s constitution. The amended version praised the Communist Party and China’s political system. Some Southern Weekend staff called a strike and supporters protested outside their offices in Guangzhou, chanting political slogans of a sort rarely heard on China’s streets since 1989.

In both cases, officials were in breach of China’s constitution. There is nothing new in that. The officials were behaving as officials always have behaved. What has changed is the expectations of the people. Chinese citizens can no longer be pacified with economic growth and slogans. They want political change. How Xi Jinping, China’s new leader, manages this growing pressure for reform will determine his, and his country’s, future.

The justice system and press freedom are core reasons for popular discontent. China’s reform-through-labour system, known as laojiao, was set up in 1957 under Mao Zedong. It is different from the mainstream system of prisons and labour camps whose inmates have been through the judicial system. Established to deal with “counter-revolutionaries”, laojiao camps are now reserved for petty criminals, prostitutes and petitioners who embarrass the government. People can be locked up in them without trial for up to four years. They are said to hold around 160,000 detainees, possibly more.

Hard labour and free speech

How serious the plans for reform are remains unclear. The microblog of a senior legal journalist quoted a senior legal official saying that the government would “stop using” the laojiao system within a year. Hours later, however, Xinhua, the official news agency, reported that the system would be “reformed”, not abolished. Previous promises of reform have come to nothing; and even if detainees are to be allowed a lawyer and a judicial hearing, China’s legal system offers defendants few protections. Even so, many analysts are encouraged.

In Guangzhou, meanwhile, after several days on strike, Southern Weekend’s journalists appear to have gone back to work amid reports that a deal had been reached that would allow a return to the usual (if bizarre) system: journalists censor themselves, and censors do not intervene too aggressively beyond the daily government advisories to editors. But the propaganda chief remains in his job, and there are no signs of liberalisation. The Communist Party’s leaders continue to treat press freedom not as an instrument to check corruption but as a recipe for chaos.

Since the early 1990s there has been an implicit deal in China between rulers and ruled—that the rulers would ensure prosperity so long as the ruled did not demand too much freedom. Now many people seem to be reneging on the deal. They’ve got the prosperity, and they want the freedom too. As fast as internet censors delete critical articles and tweets, more angry middle-class people join the debate and start posting new complaints. On January 7th Yao Chen, a famous film star with more than 30m followers on her microblog, quoted Alexander Solzhenitsyn in support of the Southern Weekend journalists: “one word of truth outweighs the whole world.” Even people within the establishment are calling for political change. Last month 72 respected citizens, mostly academics and lawyers, signed a petition calling for radical reform.

For liberal Westerners, ending censorship and labour camps is a moral imperative. For Mr Xi, a pragmatic authoritarian, the calculation is different, but if he knows what is good for him and his country, he will arrive at the same answer. The party’s efforts to maintain control through repression are leading to instability, not stability. Reform is risky, but avoiding it is riskier still.

Mr Xi clearly understands the strength of popular feeling, particularly on the issue of corruption and official extravagance. As he tours the country, he has made much of avoiding the usual elaborate banquets. “Four dishes and a soup” has become the media shorthand for his more frugal, more open approach. But slogans against graft will no longer placate China’s people. Mr Xi needs to start changing the system. One photo posted online in support of the striking journalists showed a dozen men and women holding posters that read: "Four dishes and a soup is not real reform. Press freedom is real reform."

Correction: The original version of this leader wrongly stated that the "four dishes and soup" slogan was seen on a banner in Guangzhou this week, rather than in a photo posted online. This was corrected on January 11th. We apologise for the error.