The number of demonstrations against
government mismanagement and corruption in China
is rising. Since late last year, the media in Hong
Kong, Taiwan, Europe, Japan and the United States
have frequently reported protests erupting at city
offices and other public sites across the country.
People regularly barge into government
offices to protest when local newspapers reveal
incidences of corruption. News coverage leads to
public anger when redevelopment projects provide almost
no
restitution for people who have been evicted to
make way for construction, while the relatives of
local officials get rich. Protests frequently
prompt revenge. Local officials send gangsters to
threaten and physically harm people who have
raised their voices against government abuse.
Recently, many Chinese have seen their
standard of living deteriorate as state-owned
companies are privatized, employees are fired with
little compensation and businesses begin to charge
for once-free services at company-affiliated
schools, hospitals and apartments. Meantime, the
children of well-connected party officials are
raking in money, building luxurious homes and
driving around in expensive cars. This situation
heightens the dissatisfaction of average citizens,
so when protests begin they quickly expand to
include others with different complaints.
Zhou Yongkang, minister of the public
security bureau, in August 2004 alerted the world
to the country's heightened unrest: "There were
58,000 protests that [each] involved over 100
people throughout China two years ago. Last year
the number rose to 74,000, and a total of 3.8
million people participated in these
demonstrations."
The news of 74,000
protests caught the attention of reporters around
the world. Soon many commentators in the West and
Japan were speculating that the Chinese regime
might be on the verge of collapse.
Yet
even as people across the world were reading these
reports, one was forced to wonder why the Chinese
government was making a point of communicating to
the outside world that demonstrations were on the
rise.
Previously, the Chinese government
had neither announced yearly statistics about
demonstrations nor talked about any specific
incidents. In addition, Chinese media outlets only
sporadically mentioned the protests. The only
people able to gauge the magnitude of the
disturbances were a few top communist leaders. If
the minister of public security had not announced
that protests were increasing, nobody would have
known.
Almost all Chinese perceive that
economic disparities are growing and are aware of
the protests, but they do not think that the
government is threatened with collapse.
The rising number of protests is a sign of
"economic struggles" rather than "political
strife". The cause of the demonstrations is public
anger over lost economic benefits, such as
compensation that people have not received because
of corruption. If municipal and Communist Party
officials provide the expected compensation and
punish officials accused of corruption, the
protests will subside.
It is thought that
many demonstrations grow out of strikes organized
by labor unions demanding higher wages and
"negotiating" over prices. Just as labor unions
demanding higher wages from companies do not seek
to topple the companies, people who are calling
for compensation from the government are not
attempting to bring down the Communist Party.
Fanning the flames before a shift in
policy Many Chinese understand the causes
of the demonstrations, but many Western and
Japanese observers do not comprehend the realities
of the situation. Because hawks dominate the media
in the United States, many commentators have a
hostile attitude toward China, and Japan is the
recipient of much of this skewed American
analysis. If the Public Safety Bureau reports that
there were 74,000 demonstrations in 2003, it is
not surprising that many outside observers
conclude that China must be near to collapse.
Recent events help explain why top Chinese
officials are heightening the sense that the
country is facing a crisis. At the fifth plenary
session of 16th Central Committee of the Communist
Party, the Hu government decided to shift its
economic emphasis away from strengthening large
cities to a Five Year Plan for National Economic
and Social Development aimed at agricultural
areas.
In China, if the government decides
that it is going to crack down on local official
corruption, it first reveals the extent of
corruption in the media in order to persuade
people that the new policy is necessary. If the
government did not do this, but simply promulgated
an anti-corruption law, then many officials would
be angered and the result would be a political
battle between different factions within the
Communist Party. To avoid such a scenario, the
government arranges for many articles detailing
corruption to be published. The government seeks
to mobilize public opinion by raising public
concern in order to smooth the way for the
implementation of its new policies.
Hence,
the Public Safety Bureau's announcement that the
number of demonstrations is rising and the
increase in coverage by local newspapers to
prepare the way for the launch of the Five Year
Plan in 2006. Because the plan will decrease funds
being directed to large cities, urban party
officials are sure to oppose it. In order to quell
this opposition, central government officials are
playing up the danger posed by protests in rural
areas.
The last will of Deng
Xiaoping? The Chinese government in October
announced the rural revitalization plan just
before US Treasury Secretary John W Snow visited
China. Before his trip, Snow had repeatedly
criticized China's refusal to allow the yuan
(China's currency) to float more freely.
During his visit, however, Snow praised
the Five Year Plan as "beneficial not only for
China but good for the world". This is because if
the prosperity of rural Chinese - 1 billion of the
country's 1.3 billion population - improves even
marginally, they will probably buy more American
goods and the US trade deficit with China will
decrease.
Since the 1980s, former leader
Deng Xiaoping's concept of "getting rich first"
has guided Chinese economic policy. The idea of
"getting rich first" allowed people who can get
rich first, to do so, while those who cannot fall
behind. The current policy shift initiated by
Chinese President Hu Jintao places an emphasis on
helping rural agricultural areas that have been
left behind for the past two decades.
Courting Taiwan Hu is launching
other new policies. One of these is that China
will not strike out at Taiwan as long as the
island does not declare "independence".
China appears ready to recognize Taiwan's
autonomy in the economic realm. Encouraged by
Korea, the Hu government explored the possibility
of allowing a representative from Taiwan to attend
this month's APEC conference in Busan, South
Korea.
(On October 12, after a visit to
Taipei by South Korean officials the Taiwanese
government decided to send Wang Chin-p'ing,
Chairman of the National Assembly and a top
official in the opposition Nationalist Party to
the meetings, but China apparently responded that
a politician would not be acceptable, so the
Koreans asked Taiwan to send an economic expert.)
Nurtured by the Hu government, economic
ties between Taiwan and China have been growing
stronger. Chinese can now buy fruit grown in
Taiwan and take vacations to the island, and the
exchange of the two rivals' currencies has begun
on a limited scale. As economic ties strengthen, a
declaration of independence becomes more
difficult. Proponents of independence warn their
fellow islanders to "not be taken in by Chinese
money", but many Taiwanese cannot restrain the
desire to "get rich on the continent".
Simultaneously, Hu has been seeking to
politically isolate Taiwan. In September at the UN
General Assembly, he met with US President George
W Bush and suggested the creation of a bilateral
organization to maintain stability across the
Taiwan Strait. This proposal represents a Chinese
attempt to advance a process for resolving the
cross-strait standoff without including Taiwan,
that is, one that is entirely between China and
the United States. Hu was seeking to take
advantage of the Bush administration's view that
any movement toward Taiwanese independence is a
threat to the US-Chinese relationship, but because
many US congressional representatives are hostile
to China and sympathetic to Taiwan, Bush remained
non-committal.
Meanwhile, the Hu
administration is embracing Taiwan's opposition
Nationalist Party, which tends to be friendly to
Beijing. The most recent Chinese strategy to woo
the Nationalist Party centers on positioning
"Japan as the common enemy". On September 3, Hu
declared in a speech at the Sixtieth Anniversary
Commemoration of Victory in the War of Resistance
that "the Nationalist and Communist parties fought
together, each party fulfilling its role, in order
to defeat Japan during the anti-Japanese war."
This was the first time that any top Chinese
communist leader had clearly recognized the
contribution played by the Nationalist party in
the war against Japan.
Because of Japanese
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to
Yasukuni shrine where war criminals are
remembered, Chinese relations with Japan are
adversarial. Hu's pronouncements that " China and
Taiwan should unite in face of the enemy Japan,"
utilizing the Yasukuni visits as ammunition,
reveal a deeper strategy.
America
decreases its criticism of China Recently,
T'ien Hung-mao, Taiwan's former minister of
foreign affairs and now the chief of the Foreign
Policy Research Center, stated in an interview
with local media: "If the United States pulls out
of Iraq, America will be swept by isolationism and
not want to become involved overseas, and the
spread of Chinese hegemony will pick up speed. As
America's desire for a fight falls, the likelihood
of a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait will
decrease. The Taiwanese government should face up
to this scenario, and make realistic plans about
how it will deal with such a situation."
His statements are supported by recent
developments. In the past several months, top Bush
administration officials have toned down criticism
of China during visits to the country. As
mentioned, Snow praised Hu's Five-Year Plan during
his trip in early October. The purpose of Snow's
trip was to advance the interests of US financial
institutions and manufacturers in China.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived
in Beijing soon after Snow departed. Even while
criticizing increases in Chinese defense spending,
he expressed hope for greater military exchange
between the United States and China.
Rumsfeld can be seen as a salesman for the
US arms industry. During the Iran-Iraq War, he met
with Saddam Hussein to persuade the dictator to
buy chemical weapons. (At the same time, the
United States was exporting weapons to Iran via
Israel.) During this trip to China, it is thought
that Rumsfeld was actually trying to sell US
weapons to China, even as he was publicly
criticizing its leadership.
Before Snow's
arrival, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
visited Beijing. She may be a "secret proponent of
multilateralism". A few months earlier, during
meetings among China, Russia and India about how
to maintain peace and stability in Eurasia, Rice
placed a call to the Chinese foreign minister to
extend her support for the conference.
The truth and fiction of the 'Plan for
Democratization' It appears the Bush
administration has promised the Hu government that
if China shows signs that it is gradually moving
toward democracy, then the US government will
decrease its criticism. Recent actions by the
Chinese government to strategically establish an
image that seems to be making advances in
democratization create this appearance.
"The Plan for Democratization and
Reconstruction", which the Chinese government
announced on October19, is one way Hu is creating
a democratic image. This plan proposes that the
government and party explore avenues to increase
the autonomy of minority peoples, expand
grassroots democratization through village
elections, pay more attention to human rights and
further democratize the party by implementing such
changes as institutional reform of the People's
Congress.
Although the plan includes
various suggestions, there is little indication
there will be significant progress in
democratization. In short, there is little new in
the plan. The election of some village leaders has
been going on for some time, and the decision to
implement institutional reform of the People's
Congress and hold broader local elections was
taken earlier. Moreover, since the founding of the
state in 1949, minority peoples have had a degree
of regional autonomy.
The possible step
toward greater democracy currently receiving the
most attention in China is whether citizens will
be allowed to directly elect local assembly
members, who have until now been appointed by the
party. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao told British
Prime Minister Tony Blair during his visit to
Beijing in September that the government would
permit direct local elections, so the government
has orally made this pledge. However, this reform
measure is not included in the "Plan for
Democratization".
In China, there is a
distinct possibility that if local politicians are
popularly elected, regions will stop following the
dictates of the party and central government, and
will no longer pass on tax revenues to the state.
If China becomes more democratic, territorial and
clan loyalties and separatist movements will
likely grow stronger, central rule might be
endangered, internal order may deteriorate and
conflict between regions will probably increase.
If this happens, then the belief that
China should democratize might simply be an
armchair theory or even worse, an invitation for
disaster, similar to the Bush administration's
attempt to "democratize the Middle East". Perhaps
the Chinese Communist Party's intense
monopolization on power is as "necessary" as
Saddam's and the Saud and Assad families'
dictatorial rule in Saudi Arabia and Syria,
respectively. The Plan for Democratization states
that "if the Communist Party does not exist,
neither can democracy."
The Chinese
government's Plan for Democratization is fiction.
The government has merely drafted a plan that
would satisfy US insistence that "in order for
China to recognized as a major power by
international community, it needs to become
democratic".
Restoration of Hu Yaobang
and talks with Tibet and Hong Kong Another
sign of so-called democratization is the Hu
government's restoration of the reputation of Hu
Yaobang, the progressive leader who died just
before the Tiananmen Square student demonstrations
in 1989. Hu has largely been ignored in China
during the last 15 years because his death
inspired the demonstrations. The party decided to
conduct memorial rites for Hu on the 90th
anniversary of his birth in November. This, too,
is an attempt by the Communist Party to alter its
image.
The Hu government is making other
efforts at creating a democratic image by
increasing communication with the exiled Tibetan
government of the Dalai Lama and with
pro-democracy Hong Kong legislators. These are
also strategic moves by the Chinese leadership as
it seeks to increase China's global power.
Shenzhen, democratization and
development On September 13 during a visit
to Shenzhen in Guangdong province, a region
adjacent to Hong Kong, Wen declared that Shenzhen
should play a leading role in political reform as
it did in economic reform. Just as Shenzhen was a
pioneer in the experiment with free-market economy
of the 1980s, central Communist Party officials
now appear to want the city to become a pioneer in
the experimental introduction of direct city
legislative elections.
The following day
after Wen had departed, secretary Li Hongzhong,
the top party official in Shenzhen, made no
mention of Wen's remarks in his speech. It
appeared as if local party officials were
disregarding the experiment with political reform
being advocated by central party officials. This
incident highlights the divergence between central
government leaders, who are actively implementing
(or, more accurately, pretending to implement)
political reforms to elevate China's global
reputation, and regional leaders who have little
interest in political reform.
In the case
of Shenzhen, the disparity can be understood as
one between local leaders, who want economic
development to continue for coastal cities such as
their own, and Beijing officials, who want to
economically develop interior rural areas that
have fallen so far behind places such as Shenzhen.
This situation invites comparison with the
European Union (EU). After the American invasion
of Iraq, top government leaders in France and
Germany hoped to create an EU that was strong
enough to balance the power of the United States.
This rush, however, was stalled by the rejection
of the EU constitution in the nationwide
referendums in France and the Netherlands. It was
as if alienated voters were demanding that their
leaders do something about the domestic economy
before becoming infatuated with foreign affairs.
The Bush administration's hopes for a more
multilateral world, which are motivated by
different reasons than those held by some French
and German politicians, were also frustrated by
the vote.
The Bush administration is
alternately acquiescent to and alarmed by the rise
of China. Top Chinese central government officials
hope to take advantage of their country's economic
ascent to establish China as a geopolitical power.
However, because regional party officials
do not recognize the trends toward America's
self-destruction and global multi-polarity, they
prefer that the government prioritize domestic
issues and do not whole-heartedly support Hu's
strategies vis-a-vis Taiwan and the international
community.
Tanaka Sakai is the
editor of Tanakanews, a Japanese language
newsletter on international affairs.
