I came down from my apartment building last Thursday planning only to walk my dog, and five minutes later found myself scuffling with a squat country thug.

There was an eviction going on in the ruins of the old compound next door, and the daughter of one of the families involved was trying to film it, only to find herself being assaulted by a couple of hired goons.

I was raised to believe that a man doesn't raise his hand to a woman, and that you don't walk away from people in trouble, so when I saw them grabbing her I put myself in between, ending up in a scuffling and snarling contest with the two.

They backed down, but what made me truly angry, at first, was the 20 or so people who were standing around gawping and hadn't lifted a finger to help the woman.

It's a complaint I've heard voiced by many Chinese that bystanders just aren't willing to get involved, even in cases of obvious criminality.

A friend of mine from Hebei Province was on the bus once, and, after one stop, several people told her, "You should be more careful, that man next to you who just got off was trying to steal from your bag."

Why, she wondered, hadn't they intervened when her purse was in danger?

It's true that "diminished responsibility"may produces dire results in the West, too.

Yet, in my experience, people are a lot more willing to step in. At the least they phone the police, or get security. In my compound, the security guards were skulking in the back of the crowd, their heads turned.

Yet we can't attribute a lack of conscience or kindness to those Chinese bystanders.

I've no doubt that if a child had fallen down a well, as in the classic example of Mencius, they would have hastened to rescue it even at risk to themselves. But when there's a chance of personal conflict, whether with a thief or a thug, they turn away.

Part of this is that the risks of being involved are much greater in China than in the West. For starters, you don't know what powerful interests will be involved, or what unwanted attention you draw to yourself.

Even the police can't always be trusted to be neutral, or to involve themselves if financial interests like construction are at stake. The risk of injury is also real. As a Westerner, I knew there was little chance of being seriously attacked, since the consequent risk to the thugs would have been much greater, sadly, than if they punched a regular Beijinger.

The lack of functioning civil courts, especially for ordinary people, means that if you're injured in such a situation your chances of getting compensation are vanishingly small. With no universal healthcare, or even the guaranteed emergency room care of the US, and little flexibility with time off work, the consequences of getting hurt are greater.

More important than that, though, is that if the last century has implanted anything in the Chinese cultural memory, it's "Don't get involved."

Don't get involved in politics, don't get involved with the Japanese, don't challenge the warlords or the tax collectors. In a country where most people are still from families of small farmers, keeping a low profile is an instinctive habit. There's also something of an ingrained cultural avoidance of conflict. Not that Chinese can't get into chair-throwing, knife-slinging arguments. But, in general, people are less willing to directly confront others. In many ways this is an admirable quality, but a harmonious society demands that people are willing to stand up, for either themselves or others.

This conflict-avoiding behavior reinforces itself, especially in a culture that often looks to others, or the community, for cues as how to behave.  An enraged Chinese crowd is a powerful, if erratic, force. But when everybody is looking at everybody else to step in, nobody ends up doing so.

I'm sure that many of the people in that crowd that day deplored what was going on, and wanted to intervene. The task for Chinese now is to create a society where, backed by strong courts, strong police, and strong values, people can step forward, knowing that others will stand behind them.