Without discounting China’s impressive economic growth, starting with the opening of its economy in the 1980s, it has also done a good job of projecting itself as an alternative model to the faltering Western world with its economic malaise. However, China’s alternative model is not what it is made out to be. To understand this, one needs to go back to the 1980s, when it all began under former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平).
Soon after Deng initiated economic liberalization, he had to contend with ideological opposition from the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) left wing, which was worried about “spiritual pollution” from the “tainted” Western model of economic growth. While Deng did prevail, he wasn’t all that prepared for an incipient democracy movement that made the death of Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦), who was earlier forced to resign as party general secretary, a rallying point. This student-led movement, inspired in part by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika, emerged to challenge the system as well as the practice of communism in China. We all know what happened to this democratic movement, with its brutal suppression by the Chinese army in June 1989.
One main lesson communist China’s leadership learned from the collapse of the Soviet Union was not to go for the Gorbachev-style perestroika, as this would be the end of the CCP’s monopoly on power.
When the Soviet leader visited China in 1989 in the midst of the student movement for democratic reforms, Deng had apparently already made up his mind to crush the movement as it was expanding its constituency to include other segments of society as well as beyond the capital, Beijing. After the brutal crackdown in Tiananmen Square, China faced strong international condemnation and sanctions from a number of countries.
Deng was not deterred and, after a brief hiatus, he sought to rally the party around his policy of economic growth and China’s modernization. He was successful in this. However, at the political level, he was determined to uphold the Leninist political system where the party wields all the power. He believed that as long as China was in growth mode, with industrialization creating opportunities for employment, the regime would be able to sustain its momentum and maintain a measure of legitimacy. Moreover, as economic growth picked up, it created an aspirational middle class with a stake in the system.
After Deng died, his successors have broadly followed the same guiding philosophy of stepping up economic growth, with the party controlling political power.
However, the country’s political and social situation is getting more complex; sectoral economic and social imbalances have created serious distortions. The disproportionate emphasis on an industrial economy has hit the agricultural sector, resulting in millions of rural workers migrating to cities in search of jobs. As a result, the rural sector has lost many of its young and able-bodied people to the cities, thus hurting its economy as well as its social landscape.
In the cities, these new workers either have very little or no access to facilities because of strict residency requirements. Their wages are low (though this is gradually changing because of increased demands from workers) and there have been reports of employers withholding wages or, at times, not paying at all. Since the employers are politically well connected, the workers don’t have access to legal processes.
Rural workers are also blamed for rising crime rates in the cities, despite the fact that the rural sector has been subsidizing industrial growth in a number of ways.
First, its labor force, working on industrial and construction sites, have been paid low wages.
Second, the prices of rural produce have remained depressed to keep the industrial sector competitive.
Third, farming communities have been subject to local taxes at the whim of the party -committees because they lack clout at the central level.
Fourth, rural land on the urban periphery has been acquired arbitrarily for industrial and construction sites.
Life is tough for people living in rural areas, which is where most people in China still live.
They have been virtually left out of the country’s industrial economy, as well as controlled and dictated to by the rich and the powerful.
The resulting economic distortions have given way to a widening economic and social gap between the urban and rural sectors, fostering severe regional imbalances as the coastal hubs hog the economic limelight. There is an obscene wealth gap between the rich and the poor and worsening environmental pollution is choking the country’s cities and affecting its river systems.
Underlying all this is a corrupt system that pervades from the local level to the highest organs of the state and the party. The party leadership is aware of the endemic corruption and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) recently highlighted the danger of widespread corruption in the party and emphasized the need for drastic action. However, despite all these exhortations at the highest level, corruption has kept on spreading.
Since anyone and everyone in the CCP is involved, nobody wants to speak up for fear of being ensnared in a serious nationwide crackdown on corruption. As such, the CCP leadership makes routine exhortations about the danger of corruption to calm people’s nerves. However, exhortations are not action and public cynicism is growing.
While the president talks of tackling corruption, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) talks of political reform and creating a responsive democratic system.
However, yet again, nothing happens and dissidents and activists continue to be rounded up. Sometimes, between the president and the premier, Chinese politics looks like a Punch and Judy show without any serious intent to deal with the two main issues that China faces: corruption and the need for a responsive and transparent political system answerable to the people.
Wen seems to have perfected his act of being the nation’s kindly grandpa, who emerges in times of catastrophe to comfort people and tell them that the culprits will be apprehended and punished. He recently appeared in this role after the collision of two bullet trains that killed at least 39 people and injured more than 200. However, this routine is wearing thin.
The Chinese oligarchy’s standard approach to dealing with unrest in the country is to beef up its internal security apparatus. Despite this, it is not succeeding entirely. It is estimated that, so far this year, there have been 180,000 riots in the country. The one area where the state is encountering difficulties is the Internet, notwithstanding all the firewalls and other programs used to control and censor it.
China’s Twitter-like site, Sina Weibo, has given a new meaning to news and views. With about 200 million Chinese using it, this has also allowed other forms of media to push their boundaries. For instance, even the state broadcaster ignored the warnings about not reporting about the train collision disaster.
Its news anchor made a searing, on air, commentary on the state of affairs in the country, without making it explicitly political.
“Can we live in apartments that do not fall down? Can the roads we drive on in our cities not collapse? Can we travel in safe trains? And if there is a major accident, can we not be in a hurry to bury the trains? Can we afford the people a basic sense of security?” the news anchor said.
“China, please slow down,” he said. “If you are too fast, you may leave the souls of your people behind.”
This says it all.
May be it is time for the world to stop romanticizing about China and get a better grip on the reality of the country.
Sushil Seth is a commentator in Australia.
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