China¡¯s police officers have a tough enough job as it is. We ask them to be on their feet eight to 12 hours a day, hot or cold, and uphold the law.

We ask them to avoid the temptation of corruption, working for painfully low salaries.

We ask them to put their lives at risk when desperate robbers take hostages in a bank and hold people at gunpoint. Police must suddenly put on their psychologist hats and negotiate for hours with troubled people threatening to commit suicide by jumping from atop buildings.

We even ask cops to come to the rescue of our silly cat when it wanders up a tree and won¡¯t come down.

But, no, we don¡¯t like them when they catch us personally misbehaving, perhaps when we disobey traffic rules by parking our cars in the wrong spot or when the lead in our foot causes us to drive too fast.

I¡¯ve got news for you, folks. You¡¯ve got to take the good with the bad.

A recent incident in Guangdong is a case in point. Two traffic police officers stopped a bus along a road near the border of Guangzhou and Foshan after it paused too long for passengers, according to Xinhua News Agency.

When officers tried to detain the bus driver to issue a citation, a crowd of 200 people suddenly decided to interfere. The officers had demanded to see the bus¡¯ operation licence and the driver refused to comply. The bus¡¯ ticket collector and the driver then pushed the police officers off the bus and drove away.

This would be unthinkable in the West. At a minimum, the bus¡¯ tyres would have been shot out. Or, the driver would have been shot dead.

In any case, the officers radioed their colleagues who stopped the bus at some point farther up the roadway.

But the bus operators had also called for backup, and more than 200 people arrived from out of the woodwork and surrounded the traffic police.

Where did these 200 people come from? Why do authorities in China allow such chaos to take place?

If people who are disgruntled about traffic rules simply join hands to disrupt officers whenever a disagreement takes place, and then intimidate officers by sheer numbers, chaos will replace the rule of law.

This is not how democracy is designed to work. Democracy protects the few, not the mob.

The group of miscreants on the road pushed the officers, and tried to keep them from detaining the bus operators. Local police were asked to send out 20 more officers to keep order.Though no one was seriously hurt, the ensuing madcap situation resulted in a three-hour traffic jam.

It is said that Guangzhou¡¯s traffic authorities have suggested a joint campaign with Foshan police to target buses violating rules. I would argue the situation merits much more. A campaign should be started to crackdown on the most uncivil disobedience exhibited among the people in the area who disrupted the police from completing their duties.

If law officers in the West are physically touched in any way by citizens while writing citations for unlawful citizens ¡ª much less shoved ¡ª such citizens would be arrested for assaulting the officer. An assault of that nature is a serious offence. It could result in years in jail. If citizens interfered with an officer doing his duty such as these citizens did, they would likely be arrested and charged, too.

If China wishes to progress to become a developed country, it must rid itself of such chaotic scenes.

And to be respected in the international community on all fronts ¡ª from showing respect for intellectual property rights to agreements on the textile trade ¡ª Chinese leaders have declared the nation must be based on the rule of law. It all starts at home on the streets where people obey the traffic rules and respect the police.

Time is of the essence.