China’s ever widening wealth gap may give rise to a raging bull that Beijing won’t be able to tame in the New Year. From Reuters, via The Toronto Star:
The huge divide in Chinese living standards is apparent in the armies of humbly dressed men and women hauling carts piled with boxes, discarded appliances and other scrap for recycling through city streets.
It is also seen in the beggars prowling city subway lines and street corners, and in the rundown ghettos and shanty towns in and around city suburbs.
Layoffs and sudden factory closures have provoked protests in some regions, accentuating worries over the threat to social stability and prompting government calls for companies to avoid job cuts.
So far, anger over layoffs seems aimed mainly at employers, but there are risks of wider problems.
