China's rulers are nervous. The increased level of repression in the country reflects this: There are reports of all kinds of people being put behind bars or being simply picked up by the authorities for salutary beatings. And many of them do not even challenge the regime but are guilty of simply going about their business as lawyers, journalists and other professionals.
The government has further tightened media control by putting new restrictions on foreign news agencies by subjecting their news reports to prior approval from the Xinhua news agency. The government has also put in place a punitive system of fines for media if they report disasters and protests without permission.
The authorities have launched an investigation of charity organizations and environmental bodies that have even a whiff of foreign funding.
In a relatively mild criticism of increased official repression, the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders said that: "Some activists have disappeared. Several have been subjected to unfair trials or harsh sentences in local Chinese courts."
Some of those on the receiving end of this crackdown include blind activist Chen Guangcheng (
China's rulers are becoming increasingly paranoid that there are internal and external forces seeking to destabilize the country and overthrow the regime. Inside the country, they have apparently been shaken by an increasing number of protests and demonstrations over a whole host of issues. According to official statistics, there were 87,000 "public order disturbances" last year, up 6.6 percent from 2004. The real figure could be much worse.
DISORGANIZED
Much of the time these are spontaneous protests, without any organizational design behind them. They mostly arise from local grievances like rural land seizures, party corruption, local taxes and so on. But they do have a common theme of frustration and anger over the arbitrary and corrupt behavior of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) elites.
The situation is much worse in rural areas, as Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) admitted recently.
"Some locales are unlawfully occupying farmers' land and not offering reasonable economic compensation and arrangements for livelihoods, and this is sparking mass incidents in the countryside," he said in a recent speech.
"We absolutely cannot commit a historical error over land problems," he continued, apparently referring to China's history of peasant uprisings.
By and large, local people do not seem to blame the central leadership for the excesses of their local bosses, believing that they are simply not aware of the rot that has set in at the local levels. Wen's speech, though, would suggest that the central leadership is fully aware, but is not doing much about it. Some have even gone to Beijing to petition the authorities for corrective action, but have ended up in trouble for their boldness.
HELPLESSNESS
It would be fair to say that local frustrations are gradually building up to the extent that they threaten to pollute the entire system. There is a growing sense of helplessness all around at a state of affairs where ordinary citizens (without the connections and money to bribe) have no political or social recourse.
So far there is no organized opposition to the CPP because of the state's coercive and punitive apparatus. But as the party would know from Premier Wen's speech, it doesn't take long for a prairie fire to ignite and then get out of control.
The CCP counts on rapid economic growth as the main source of its legitimacy, and hence it is terrified that growth will slow. Much of the nation's current growth is export-based. China's burgeoning exports to the US and Europe are creating protectionist sentiments in those countries and its growing trade surpluses are causing problems, particularly in the US.
There is pressure on China to revalue its currency to correct trade distortions. But Beijing is resisting any meaningful action in this regard.
Some commentators even fear an economic crash. Writing in the Guardian newspaper, Jonathan Watts and Larry Elliott said: "The trigger for a crash could be a period of weakness in the US, the main customer for low-priced goods from Chinese factories."
"Exports and fixed investment account for more than 80 percent of China's GDP, and any sudden fall in US demand would feed through into factory closures and higher unemployment in China," they said.
Any growth strategy based largely on exports with cheap labor is simply asking for trouble. Depressed wages, with labor under tight and coercive control, are not conducive to a "harmonious society" -- the new buzzword in the ruling party's lexicon.
Work conditions are generally bad in China, but they are worst for rural migrants working in the cities. They have virtually no rights because they don't have residency permits to claim government services meant only for local residents. The gross injustice of this situation is reflected in the fact that these rural workers constitute nearly 80 percent of the urban construction force, 68 percent of labor in electronic manufacturing, 58 percent of caterers and so on.
As George Gilboy and Eric Heginbotham have written in Current History, "Migrant workers without municipal hukou [registration] cannot participate in regular job markets. When they do find work, their rights under Chinese labor law are frequently violated. Their wages are withheld for months or years. The government estimates that [as of 2004] China's 100 million migrant workers are owed US$12 billion back pay."
All this and other inequities are creating frustration and anger. According to Study Times, a CCP journal: "The amber light is on and the red alert level could be passed within the next five years."
The strategy of growth at any cost is counterproductive. As Lu Ming (盧明), a researcher at Fudan University in Shanghai, has pointed out: "Whether you look at it from a political point of view of `building a harmonious society' or from an economic one, we have to develop the internal market [as against export-based growth] and protect workers to guarantee stability and development."
The country is faced with many unresolved social, economic and political issues. But in the absence of alternative avenues and mediation through a pluralist political process, these tensions and contradictions are simply piling up.
CYNICISM
Even when the authorities sometimes seek to tackle issues, like corruption, popular cynicism is so rampant that nobody believes it. For instance, the recent sacking of Shanghai party boss for siphoning off workers' pension funds to finance real estate and other shady deals, is clearly a case of a political witch-hunt by President Hu Jintao (
And as for the new crackdown on journalists, lawyers, social activists and others, the regime is simply locking them away for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It also reflects paranoia about the "color revolutions" that swept the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine. China fears that such movements will spring up with help from outside forces.
The Communist leadership lives with the constant fear of an implosion like the one that occurred in the Soviet Union and its satellite regimes. It would like to believe that by concentrating on rapid economic growth, it has won legitimacy of sorts and hence might have some immunity against this Soviet type of infection.
But its non-stop obsession with pre-emptive strikes against even a whiff of dissent or protest is indicative of how insecure China's ruling oligarchs really are.
Sushil Seth is a writer based in Australia.
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