Anyone coming here thinking it's "safer" definitely had the wrong impression. Anyone paranoid about being attacked or robbed at any moment is too though. I think the point that everyone can agree on is to be aware of your surroundings and exercise healthy caution.

"If everyone in the world over 18 years of age were required to carry a gun - the world would be a more civilized place!"

@texas boy - spoken like a true Texan, don't ever change. Where in Texas you from, btw?

I'm from Muleshoe

Cool. I was born on the opposite side of the state in Shelby, but my parents moved to Canada before I was two. I've always wanted to go back.

I'll take an axe over a gun anyday.

@Texasboy: If everybody in the world over 18 were required to carry a gun, would it still be necessary to have another big war for population control? Either way, how is it that the world would then become a more civilized place? How do you define civilization, anyway?

I love the American answer to safety - give everyone guns, then the world will be safer! Peace at the end of a gun barrel! Could you imagine every Chinese person walking around armed? The roads would be an interesting place!

Yep - - and if I had the biggest gun - pretty soon I'd have all the pacifists working for me!!

FYI - violent crime statistics are typically around 2% for most developed countries. This covers a very wide gamut of crimes with victims (to include murder, assault, etc). China's public statistics are around 3% - however that's a little deceiving because of population metrics - MOST of China's rural poor come to the cities to find work - hence the data is actually skewed significantly HIGHER for cities (like 4-5%...roughly guessing/speaking).

So cities in China have a higher propensity for all kinds of criminal activity - simply because of the population metrics - and China's population metrics are unlike ANY other western country in the entire world. If you're from he USA (population circa 300 million), China's reported population is 1.4 billion - a 3-5x denser packed nation. Most US cities pale in comparison to even Tier 3 Chinese cities in comparison to simple population metrics.

So while China may appear more violent - on a per capita basis - it's rather similar if not better than most western developed nations.

Frequenting high population density locales will increase your opportunities to witness an abundance of aberrant social behavior - from public drunkenness, to axe wielding miscreants (not to mention the occasional streaker - yep - saw one of those a few years ago, in the rain - on a major street).

If China's rate of violent crime is 3% and that of western developed nations on the average is about 2%, how is it that the situation in China is 'better' than that of most western developed nations? It sounds to me, using your statistics and reasoning, that it might be 'better' in the countryside and 'worse' in the cities, in China.
Then of course there's the question of the accuracy and comparativity of the statistics, etc.

@alien
Ballpark number based on some UN & USA stats from several years ago, when I was trying to profile project risks due to fraud - white collar & blue collar (and collarless, in China).

For a rapidly developing nation, such as China, 3% is quite an achievement - however, yes, you're correct - not as "safe" as western countries, depending on your definition of "safe".

Personally, for us, as we're children endowed, China's safer from a child molestation perspective - especially as we don't live in the abandoned rural areas. California and the USA in general is highly tolerant to the civil rights of chronic child molesters and sex offenders - which is why I'm a BIG fan of CERTAIN parts of Sharia or Islamic law.

For Kunming and Yunnan in general - petty theft is rampant (up to say an e-bike or mountain bike level). One of our compadres had his work van ripped off - but I don't believe that was a theft of convenience (and it's considered "grand theft" in the USA - which used to mean the value of the theft exceeded a certain dollar value (aka state designated statutory amount). Grand theft in California is anything over USD 400.

Most expats are theft and fraud magnets - especially in KM. We live at the very end of an old upscale part of the city (now a rathole) - and some thieves walked all the way in to steal TWO of our bicycles. I suspect collusion with one of our neighbors, as the bikes weren't visible from the street AND they knew there were TWO AND they only stole our bicycles - didn't touch the others. Fortunately, the gate guard and her husband stopped them and we took them to the police station - but she (two females) was DEFINITELY in collusion with one of the neighbors - too many coincidences to be coincidental.

However, this is petty compared to potential bodily injury or worse. It's rather a toss up for us - but we believe the global future of economy is here, NOT the USA - so we suffer through China's disadvantages, to seek its fruits for our children's futures.