Since assuming its seat in the UN Security Council in 1971, China has gradually moved to use its veto to protect pariah states (with which it does business) and to check United States policy on matters deemed not to be in China's interests (the protection or recognition of Taiwan.) China's UN diplomacy is coloured far more by pragmatism than it is by ideology - its voting being shaped by world perceptions as well as strategic considerations. Domestically, China experiences some 150,000 to 180,000 protest demonstrations and riots a year. Yet, despite widespread corruption and massive inequalities of income and wealth, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) retains its iron grip on power - economic, health, environmental and political destabilizing factors notwithstanding. Essentially, the CCP controls, imprisons or executes all who seek to reform it or who dare to openly oppose it. Significantly, Mao Ze Dong, often eulogized as a great benefactor, killed 78 million of his own citizens (through starvation or violence), making him a greater mass murderer than the Nazi leader, Adolph Hitler, who killed 17 million German civilian opponents - some 458.8% fewer than Mao's tally of victims
