Single-issue local protests have mushroomed in China. Given their fragmented nature and different causes, they do not present a uniform threat to the regime, but show growing readiness by citizens to defend their interests against authority. The scale of the protests presents the one-party regime with a containment problem it is finding it hard to resolve.
The Hu Jintao administration favours a conciliatory approach to avoid fanning trouble. But it faces the problem that the initial response to demonstrations comes from the authorities at the local level, where it is precisely these decision-makers who are often the targets of the protests. New forms of communication facilitate the spreading of messages and the organisation of demonstrations. These protests are, therefore, likely to become a recurrent feature of the Chinese growth story. They have to be taken into account both in assessing China's stability and the danger of localised opposition to investments that involve redundancies, requisitioning of land or environmental issues.
The number of protests reported in China has increased markedly in recent years. This reflects both the growing range of issues that cause discontent and the increasing readiness of people to take action in a less repressive climate than in the Maoist era. The Social Blue Book for 2005 published by the central government think tank, the China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), reported that mass protests (usually defined as involving more than 100 people) increased from 10,000 in 1993 to 60,000 a year in 2003. Zhou Yongkang, the Minister of Public Security and a Politburo member told the upper house of the legislature in July 2005 that the there were more than 74,000 mass protests across the country in 2004.
Protests are localised, rather than being organised on a national scale. The main causes are:
Large-scale protests can also break out on other issues. For instance, more than ten thousand people rioted in Hunan early this year over an increase in bus fares. In Guangxi, there were disturbances in the spring against the one-child policy. Richer and poorer regions are equally affected. There has been a string of protests over land seizures in booming Guangdong, while poor Guangxi has been the scene of rural demonstrations. The new property law, despite its limitations, should provide scope for legal challenges to land grabs by officials.
Mobile telephones, SMS, and the Internet play an increasingly important role in the organisation of protests and in spreading information more widely, attracting new participants. Increasingly, blogs act as discussion forums, as in the recent "nail house" episode in Chongqing when a resident refused to move from her residence on a big building site until offered increased compensation. Bloggers homed in on the incident: an exact-phrase-only Google search for "Chongqing nail house" in Mandarin yields 180,000 results.
Official reaction has been varied, according to the attitude taken by the local authorities and the view in Beijing. As our Trusted Source reports, central government tactics have become more subtle, seeking to avoid escalation. But the scale and variety of the protests - and the way in which local officials are often the target of the demonstrators - makes it difficult to produce a coherent response.
We have profiled a set of recent protests. Each reflects a strand in the mosaic of protest. Though these are only a tiny fragment of the picture, most of them ended with some form of negotiation or a retreat by the authorities, which may be only temporary but shows growing suppleness from the official side. In at least one case, Beijing came down on the side of the protestors. Please click on the links listed below to see details:
China is facing a radical social transition. Alongside the growth in wealth, income disparities have widened while the lack of the rule of law and official corruption intensify social conflicts. Mass protests demonstrate the conflict of interest between social groups and the tension between the population and the authorities.
Provincial governments are required to report any protests to the General Office of the Central Committee of CCP and the State Council immediately. However, it is usually provincial officials who actually deal with protests. The central government monitors the process and steps in if it thinks the provincial government is not handling events properly, or if there is a special need for armed reinforcements to be sent in.
Semi-official research reports and internal speeches by central government officials show the gravity of the issue. I rate the main causes in order of importance as:
1. Seizure of agriculture land to build industrial facilities, dams and power stations.
2. Redevelopment of urban residential areas.
3. Low compensation for layoffs caused by industrial restructuring.
4. Corruption of local government officials and SOE managers, plus unjust law enforcement.
5. Polluting industrial projects.
On the other hand, the abolition of rural taxes to boost the disposable income of farmers has had the side effect of removing one major reason for demonstrations in the countryside.
A new feature of the mass protests is the growing number of lawyers and social activists who voluntarily take part. This alters the protests from being simple outbursts of immediate anger to better organised demonstrations with clear goals. Since the National People's Congress passed the law on property rights in March 2007, more and more protests are being launched to protect these rights. The government’s tactics in dealing with the protests have changed. In the 1990s, the authorities usually sent in armed police, or even PLA soldiers. They repressed the demonstrations and arrested participants, who were then severely punished.
Since Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao came to power in 2002, government tactics have become subtler. The aim is to avoid escalation by offering some compromises to protestors. Arrests and legal action against the organisers are often carried out only after the situation has calmed down. In December 2006, the central government for the first time formally admitted the seriousness of the protests, and promised to solve the problem in a resolution to the Communist Party's Central Committee.
The central government has also taken some measures to help disadvantaged groups, including farmers, the unemployed in urban areas and pensioners. However, due to limited government fiscal resources and the nature of current political system, it is very unlikely that the government can satisfy the needs of such disadvantaged groups or stop either the widening income disparities or official corruption. Therefore the mass protests will continue and may develop further in the near future.
The assertion of individual and group rights is a classic element in an era of economic growth such as that being experienced explosively in China (though, in this case, there is the complication that such rights are poorly defined and are likely to be asserted outside any legal framework). The lack of rule of law and accountability, absence of varied political channels, media censorship and the power of local officials all lead people to take direct action now that the penalties they face are less oppressive than in the early decades of Communist rule.
The nature of China's growth and its repercussions mean, as our Trusted Sources forecasts, that protests will continue and may develop on a localised scale. The real danger for the regime would come if individual upsurges against the authorities coalesced around common causes and turned into a broad attack on the Communist Party, as happened in China's cities in 1989.
NEXT TESTS
1. Scale of protests
2. Effectiveness of government moves to improve environment, legal system, central control of provincial officials
3. Resolution of Xiamen and Shanghai cases
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