For the past two months, local officials in the southwestern Chinese province of Guangxi have pursued a harsh campaign aimed at enforcing China's population planning laws.
In order to meet targets for allowable births, they forced pregnant women to have abortions. They threatened to demolish homes to make residents cough up fines demanded for excess children.
This month citizen anger boiled over. Thousands of angry rural residents took to the streets, smashing cars and sacking government offices.
The vicious nature of the Guangxi enforcement campaign is all the more striking because it directly conflicts with the orders of China's top leaders.
[click here for the full version of the May 29, 2007 International Herald Tribune editorial]
[click here for Sing Tao's May 30 Chinese translation of the IHT editorial]
If as Dr. Minzer notes, citizens feel compelled to riot because they have no other means of redressing grievances, this represents a growing social volatility with no solution in sight. Could an independent judiciary and the Party co-exist?
Also, the "goon squads" alluded to in the article are a burgeoning phenomenon. China is experiencing unprecedented levels of rural-urban migration. The countryside is in flux and as a result, millions are unemployed. Village leaders dealing with a surplus of unemployed young men have found it useful to provide them with employment in private 'goon squads' (more like local toughs in cheap suits than paramilitary). In my field research on an election day, rival village clans actually hired opposing squads to duke it out.
"The sky is high and the emperor is far away". The selective implementation or total disregard for central policy by local officials is a key problem if Beijing hopes to control social unrest. I have found that among rural people there is a very traditional mindset. Some feel that the top leaders in Beijing are good and honest people but their local leaders are corrupt. If only Beijing leaders knew about their problems, they would certainly fix them. Thus, thousands of people spend their life savings and many years trying to get their petitions heard in Beijing (Dr. Yu Jianrong of CASS estimates just 2 in 1000 produce a gov't response).
Posted by: WJ | May 31, 2007 at 09:54 AM
Excellent there are no better way in saying it.
Posted by: Rudi | May 31, 2007 at 10:00 PM