China Seen Facing Wave of Unrest in 2009
Outlook, an official publication, has published an article which gives a bleak outlook for the government’s ability to control the rising level of unrest that is expected to hit China this year. From Reuters:
The unusually stark report in this week’s Outlook (Liaowang) Magazine, issued by the official Xinhua news agency, said faltering growth could spark anger among millions of migrant workers and university graduates left jobless.
“Without doubt, now we’re entering a peak period for mass incidents,” a senior Xinhua reporter, Huang Huo, told the magazine, using the official euphemism for riots and protests.
“In 2009, Chinese society may face even more conflicts and clashes that will test even more the governing abilities of all levels of the Party and government.”
[...] This report and other recent open warnings may be intended to help snap officials to attention, said one Chinese expert.
“The candor about these problems reflects the severity of the unemployment problem. It’s meant to attract the attention of all levels of government,” said Mao Shoulong, a professor of public policy at Renmin University in Beijing.
See also a comment on this report from the Time China blog, and a Reuters factbox about potential sources of unrest. A number of politically-sensitive anniversaries are also making authorities extra-cautious. See this Asia Times report.
POSTED COMMENTS: 17 Responses
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The doom and gloom prophet never learn their lesson bruise and beaten so many times yet as the perennial spring there is alway tomorrow!
John, in this case “the doom and gloom prophet” is the CCP itself!
Didn’t you care to read the contents but the headline only? LOL!
couldn’t care less whether they are Xinhua or not still doom and gloom prophet made by some intellectual reporter who read too much of western press
This is exactly what all our enemies have wished us against all wishes to be but never yet materialised~wishful thinking, eh? Let them keep dreaming on while the real Chinese work hard & the world will become a whole new scenario in no time!
Remember there is even one caustic personel by the name of Gordon Chang who predicted that China will become many Chinas many years back & another Chinese bitch who prostituted herself & married an Englishman & co authored an ‘Alice-in-wonderland’ book on the purported Chinese Gulag while expressing her ‘great admiration’ for the so-called ‘freedom, rule of law, democracy etc…etc…’ in one Guardian article so shamelessly? Oh! there are just one too many mickey-mouses who would wish China ill but will their poisoned prayers be answered? Not a chance!
Blah blah blah. Who cares what people wish for China or don’t wish for China? Who cares about enemies and friends?
The question at hand is: will unrest in China increase this year? It seems that unrest has, in fact, already increased, at least in terms of strikes and other labor protests.
Is this such a bad thing? No. It is normal to have strikes and protests. In plenty of countries, these are not seen as serious disturbances threatening the state, but instead as just another way of mediating different interests.
Increasingly, I think, the Chinese leadership is starting to cool down about unrest, too. The new Shenzhen “harmonious labor relations” legislation is a step in the right direction—acknowledging strikes as natural and thinking about how the official union can REPRESENT workers in the event of a strike, not just rush in all worried and try to hush things up with mediation.
I’ve never thought Gordon Chang had much of a point (except in his chapters about non-performing loans from banks—but then that issue was more or less dealt with by the government a couple years ago, though there’s been backsliding). Basically, it felt like Chang was just waiting for the time, one day, when the CCP inevitably loses power—so he could say he told us so.
But the knee-jerk need to defend China against any bad news seems equally silly. Are you really saying that there isn’t unrest in China? That there won’t be more this year than in the past? That would make China unique in the whole world.
Mark Twain had a good quote where he said it’s fine to like a nation but to love its government is crazy, like really loving a piece of clothing:
“To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags–this is loyalty to unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it.”
Ehh, unsurprisingly and as usual OTR, I think you are missing the point here.
It’s not that China ought not to have any unrests or the reports thereof that Chinese people object to, but rather the Western media’s propensity to hype each unrest up as heralding the fall of the government or the disintergration the country.
In fact, many of the protesters are often interested only in seeing their narrow interests and grievances addressed, rather than the overthrow of the government, which many in the Western media either don’t understand or simply don’t want to understand because it doesent’ sell.
Yes, I agree that there’s a tendency to hype up these sorts of reports. And most of the protests in China are, indeed, focused on local issues. Labor protests tend to not even be on “local” issues (i.e. local government issues, like rigged elections or abuse by officials) but on enterprise-specific issues.
But the Chinese government does its own hyping, too. What other governments put out reports on the level of “unrest” expected in a given year?
For all I know, the FBI might take stock of what an economic downturn means for crime or strikes or whatever. But does it issue dire warnings about what’s ahead? Does it say that this is a serious issue in need of discussion by the Democratic Party?
No, by treating strikes and protests like a big deal, the Chinese government gives them more of a punch than they would otherwise have, makes them a big deal. It’s not so strange that others then, in turn, see the protests as significant—and hype them up themselves.
What I still don’t get is why any of this would make anyone feel sensitive. Who cares what someone says about your country?
Wow, that’s a pretty sweeping statemet and you know what that generally says about the maker of the statement. There are Chinese people who care about what other people think and there are those who don’t. And you think the former is representative of all just because you only hear or misunderstad what they are trying to say? What does that say about your own perspective?
I’ve met plenty of Americans who very much cared what the rest of the world think about them during the Bush administration’s rampage around the world and also many rednecks in suits who simply didn’t give a damn.
So here’s a newsflash for you matey, it’s call being human and please, do us all a favour and exercise what little grey matter you have and perform some self-analysis, before you embarass yourself any further with your inane spouting of dross. Ta, Ta.
There are certainly a lot of Americans who are sensitive about any criticism (note the anger directed at Obama, for example, when he made some mild comments about American arrogance on his last European trip). And I don’t get their perspective, either.
Yes, it’s human to feel a bit touchy about one’s country now and then. I know I’ve caught myself being that way at times. But to make that the starting point of one’s whole mission politically? That seems strange.
I’m not sure where I said all Chinese are sensitive. Or that others aren’t. I did say that the Chinese government can be overly sensitive, though, and that that makes what could be seen as just a routine protest into something much bigger.
Put it another way: I get someone being touchy. I don’t get that being a worthy cause in and of itself.
It would be one thing, for example, if I got angry when people kept hassling me about the American abuses in Gitmo. Of course, it would be unreasonable for me to be angry, but maybe I would be angry nonetheless, because being angry would be, as you say, only human.
But why should I then go and defend Gitmo on message boards? Why should I attack anyone who attacks Bush? Or Obama for that matter? Why make America’s image my mission?
Anyway, maybe you’re not the right person to answer all of that. And, perhaps, I’m just venting my own frustration. Fair enough.
Heh? So many words with very little meaningfully said in the end. So what if some people make their country’s image their political mission? Never heard of advertising or brand loyalty?
In the case of nations, its call pride and rightly or wrongly people do care and many express it in their own way. You may or may not agree with it, but just because you don’t have any pride doesn’t mean that others are not entitle to feel the way they do for their own reasons.
As for the Chinese government being “overly-sensitive”, well here’s another newsflash for you: people in governments are human too (mostly) and are equally susceptible to emotions like everybody else.
And you’ve never come across Italian, British, French, Mexican or American governments tec. being “over-sensitive”? You’ve been living under a rock or something? Ever come across that lovely art installation that was briefly put up in the EC parliament? Or how about that little pandemic known as the swine flu? Finally, guess what also forms part of the US secretary of state’s job description?
Consequently, despite your pathetic mind-numbingly inane drivel, your obvious fetid hypocrisy nevertheless oozes forth irrespective of the fancy verbal packaging. A pile of unthinking horse manure is still a pile of horse manure.
I’ll leave the last paragraph alone.
As to other countries being over-sensitive… obviously all countries are at one time or another. But the point I was making was specifically about the Chinese CCP / government’s sensitivity to unrest. In this regard, they are more sensitive than many other governments and parties (though, of course, not all governments and parties!) and, I would argue, needlessly so. Signs that the CCP / government is changing on this point (such as the Shenzhen regulations I mentioned earlier) are therefore encouraging. I don’t know if you find these signs encouraging or discouraging. Or maybe you don’t care and simply want to have an argument about image.
I’m not sure where the U.S. Secretary of State’s job description fits into this, but I suppose your point is that she is supposed to uphold America’s image. Fine. That’s her job. It’s not mine. I could care less about America’s image or China’s image or anyone else’s image.
As to human emotions or pride in countries… of course, we all fall short sometimes and care about a particular country over others. No need to feel OK about that, though—it’s a shortcoming, not something good. We all litter sometimes, too.
Heh??? Is there a barometer of national/government/political parties sensitivity? Who sets the scales and how do we know if one is more “sensitive” than another?
Or is that just a matter of personal opinion based on one’s limited experience and knowledge? Then how does one know that it’s valid or is it merely based on “assumptions”? Ever consider that you might be confusing national/political interest with supposed “sensitivity”? LOL! Another half-pint intellect!!!
Fair enough. No barometer that I know of, just opinion. What government do you think is more sensitive to protests and strikes?
Fair enough. No barometer that I know of, just opinion. What government do you think is more sensitive to protests and strikes?
I would say that there’s a rough spectrum, with China being toward the more sensitive end, but not the most sensitive. Saudi Arabia would be more sensitive, as would some others. Israel doesn’t seem to put up with much in the way of protests among Palestinians. Like I said, a few others…
As to national interest, I suppose my point was that the Chinese government’s “sensitivity” to protest (we can call it something else if you want) is NOT in its national interest if we read “national interest” here to mean the government’s interest. I was saying that stuff like the new Shenzhen regulations (or some of the more enlightened things that have come out of the PSB in recent years, such as warnings to local governments to deal with the root of problems and not fall back on the police all the time) seems more in line with the government’s interests than hyping up each sign of unrest as a grave problem.
Anyway, I may be missing your point. Where exactly do you see me as confused? In saying that the Chinese government is over-sensitive? In not realizing that its sensitivity is related to a greater national interest than the one I’ve assumed? In saying anything remotely critical of the Chinese state on a blog devoted to China?
Jeeze, well ye make up yer mind laddie! All this to and fro repetitive entries are confusingly tiresome, aye?
Frankly, unlike your confused self I actually think that the Chinese government’s “sensitivity” to local protests is in fact a good thing and is absolutely in the nation’s interests.
It keeps the government, whether local or central, on its toes, concentrate minds and renders it responsive to its people’s concerns, unlike in Western supposed democracies where the more things change (ie. big circus cum fanfare of an election) the more things stay the same over time, just with different packaging (ie. one set of self-serving elites being replaced by another set of self-serving elites with deeply embedded interest groups politics all over the place, whether in the executive or in the legislature). So Western style democracy? Thanks, but no thanks.
Or would you prefer that the Chinese authorities just ignore the problems and send in the riot squad? Then watch all the bleeding heart liberals complain that the government doesn’t care about its people’s welfare. So make up your mind. Confused? Why not at all, ain’t that obvious? LOL!
In fact if you look at many Chinese who argue for democratic reforms they are in fact not arguing for democracy in and of itself in the Western sense, but rather as a mean of effective (ie. less corruption) and responsive governance.
Now the trick that the Chinese government and all its electoral experiments and exercises are trying figure out is how exactly to achieve that without giving rise to interest groups politics a la Western style democracies and it ain’t no picnic.
Btw. this shall be my last posting on this thread, for frankly I’m getting bored conversing with a myopic, one-trick pony such as yourself who obviously have nothing worthwhile for me to cogitate. I feel myself rapidly going senile just from talking to you, so ta, ta and adios dude.