Ok, so we know that Chinese bloggers criticize a lot of stuff (and we can say from experience that bloggers from other nations do as well). From the Wall Street Journal's China Journal blog, here is an interesting piece quantifying what, exactly, Chinese bloggers are complaining about. It's from a research paper by Ashley Esarey, an assistant professor at Middlebury College, who specializes in Chinese media.

The finding: Sixty percent of Chinese blog posts are critical of something. (Imagethief wonders how this compares with American bloggers, who are no slouches when it comes to griping.) Criticism of corporations accounts for a relatively small ten percent of all posts, although one sixth of all critical posts. Not surprising: There is essentially no explicit criticism of local or national heads of government. Somewhat surprising: There is a lot of implicit and explicit criticism of government itself at all levels, and especially national government. It seems people are off limits, but institutions are fair game. Also surprising: Criticism of foreign countries is a bit lower than you might expect, especially if your impression of the Chinese Internet is formed largely by western media reports of brand crises in China.

I've not seen the paper itself (although I'd like to), so no info on methodology or how implicit and explicit are categorized. I'd be interested to see the whole thing. The full-size chart image is in the Journal post, above. 

Could be worse.