China Braces for Turbulent Year BEIJING - The Year of the Dragon begins Jan. 23, and even rationalists are getting jumpy. "Chinese feng shui doesn't like a Dragon Year," said He Fan, a respected economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, referring to ancient beliefs about life energy based on geomancy, astronomy and folk wisdom. "Something happens in every Dragon Year, even if it's just a turning point," he said. Often the real action begins a year or two later. In the autumn, China will get new leaders, only the fourth leadership change since the Communist Party seized power in 1949, and political infighting at the top is believed to be intense. The global economy is also more turbulent than in years past, adding to domestic uncertainties. All this is provoking widespread anxiety in private conversations and online. Soon after the last three Dragon years - on the traditional zodiac cycle of 12 animals, these fell in 1976, 1988 and 2000 - major events took place in China or the world, changing life forever, Mr. He said. As if to excuse his foray into geomancy, he added: "The Dragon Year is symbolic, and that's important, because that's how China's political culture works." Take 1976, Year Zero for the turbo-charged China of today, when the revolutionary leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai died, he said. Also, the powerful military leader Zhu De died, the Gang of Four fell and northern China was hit by one of the deadliest earthquakes of the century. "The real historical events happened two years later in 1978," Mr. He said, referring to the official beginning of the post-Mao "reform and opening up" policies that transformed an impoverished nation into the world's second-biggest economy after the United States. "In 1988, nothing in particular happened, but the year after was Tiananmen Square," Mr. He said, referring to the pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing that were crushed by the army on June 4, 1989, with the loss of hundreds, possibly thousands, of lives. The violence froze China politically. Public discussion of the massacre is taboo to this day. 2000 was a Dragon Year. The next year there was a plane crash over Hainan Island and relations were bad with the U.S.," he continued, referring to a mid-air collision between U.S. and Chinese military aircraft that provoked a crisis in relations. "Then 9/11 happened and the whole world changed," he said. So even if nothing happens in 2012, it may still be a turning point. And with a new government and leadership in position, given the new domestic and international constraints, that may bring a new era," he concluded. Mr. He did not, but might have, mentioned that two years after 1964, also a Dragon Year, China was convulsed by the Cultural Revolution. Beginning this autumn, China will get a new president, a new prime minister and a new head of the legislature, as well as scores of new military and provincial leaders. Seven of the nine members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the inner circle of power, will step down. Their successors are being hard fought over, said Cheng Li, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution. At the heart of Mr. He's concerns, and those of many others, is a sense that the easy days may be over. That is partly because the economic growth model of cheap labor and heavy investments is looking tired, but also because of a growing sense that the government is becoming a victim of its own success. After decades of development, an increasingly nimble, well-informed society is outsmarting the one-party state. As society matures, ordinary people are setting the pace via microblogs, public protests and other means, Mr. Li said. "China is changing to become remarkably more like the U.S.," he said by telephone. Those who do not see the change are looking at it too "horizontally," he said. "You have to look at it vertically" - meaning, historically.