Ahead of the Chinese Communist Party?s 90th anniversary on July 1, several incidents of unrest in the last few months involving a wide range of social groups point to deep fissures and increasing polarisation between the Chinese Communist Party and the people. On one hand, the Party is booming with an unprecedented increase in membership?from a paltry 53 members (in 1921) to 73 million, with an estimated 3.6 million organisations that includes party committees and party branches at the grassroots level.
On the other hand, belying the expanse of the Party are violent protests in different spatial geographies?southern Guangzhou, northern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, central Hubei, northern Tianjin municipality and eastern Zhejiang. Some involve minorities but others involve the Han, mocking the Party?s key slogan of recent years, that of ?harmonious society?. Incidentally, the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) has also been closed (for the second time this year) to foreign visitors.
The brazen incidents in the public realm come at a time of an unprecedented economic high in China, now the world?s second largest economy (after the US) with foreign exchange reserves of more than $3 trillion. IMF and The Economist have recently suggested that China would be the number one economy, in 2016 (IMF) and 2019 (The Economist). However, rare flashes of defiance involving face-off with paramilitary forces, bombings, torching of cars and smashing of buildings highlight long-simmering issues and increasing frustration pertaining to complex socio-economic causes in a nation in transition?from ethnicity to uneven spoils of reforms, from increasing official corruption and red tapism to rising food prices triggered in the immediate moment by separate, isolated local incidents.
These apparently disconnected incidents enable an understanding of the grievances stoking the fire. Ethnicity played to the fore in the recent protests in Inner Mongolia involving students and general public, triggered due to a hit-and-run case where a Han coal truck driver killed a Mongolian herder. Unlike ethnic Uighurs (Xinjiang) and Tibetans (TAR) who have been restive, Mongolians have been quiet?the last known protest was in 1995.
Ethnic Mongolians constitute 20% of the 24 million people in Inner Mongolia (the rest are Han Chinese) but the province has a distinct Mongolian identity rooted in language, script, traditions and cultural ethos. This is discernible in the social geography of capital Hohhot, where government and private buildings as well as street signs carry both written scripts?standardised Chinese and Mongolian.
The post-reform period has enabled the resurrection of Chinggis Khan, who established the Mongol (Yuan) Dynasty in the 13th century as a cultural commodity and icon. A younger post-socialist generation (born in the 1980s) is eagerly embracing ethnic identity and cultural icons, which has become both possible and trendy.
Despite economic largesse by the Centre to Inner Mongolia (which is China?s largest coal base), bottled up resentment over the mining boom, the disintegration of herding communities across vast grasslands and a perception that ethnic Mongolians have been side-tracked by economic development is raising its ugly head. Herders have turned their yurts (tents) into commercial hotels, and their horses now mostly ferry tourists to the grasslands. To be fair, the Party responded in record time, handing down a death sentence to the driver. The State Council also pledged to give greater economic attention. It is possible that such skirmishes and faceoffs in TAR have led to its closure to foreign visitors.
In southern Guangzhou, the hub of export industries, migrant riots highlighted a different issue: of growing internal chasm (in urban cities and small towns) between residents and migrants, and between migrants and the state. China?s conundrum is that SEZs and boomtowns need migrant labour, yet it has to keep stringent control over migrants to prevent the overwhelming of civic structures.
China has an estimated 150 million ?floating migrants?. In Guangzhou?s Xintang town, which is a garment hub, riots started as a 20-year-old pregnant street vendor was subject to forcible eviction. The perceived heavy hand in removing street vendors in the name of city beautification (which needs migrants but also puts them at the receiving end) sparked this particular fire?unraveling the Guangdong Party chief Wang Yang?s recent high profile ?Happy Guangdong? campaign. Thousands of protesters (migrants) took to the streets. The People?s Daily (the Communist Party?s mouthpiece) spoke up, saying that local governments should ?improve their social management skills and help migrants integrate into their workplace?.
The third incident highlights a problem of a different kind, of corruption and red tapism, and one that Indians can easily relate to. In Lichuan, central Hubei, the death in custody of a local legislator Ran Jianxin (local People?s Congress deputy) led to over 2,000 people rioting?protesters threw garbage and bottles at government buildings.
Collective mass incidents such as petitions, sit-ins, labour strikes and instances of ethnic unrest such as in the Tibetan ethnic areas (2008) and in Xinjiang (2009) have been on the rise. As sinologist Emile K Yeoh notes, between 1994 and 2004 the average annual growth rate of such cases has been 22.2%, while people?s participation increased by an average of 17.8%. The figure climbed to 87,000 cases and 4 million people by 2005.
Greater prosperity, rising literacy, and new technologies have led to greater information and information cracks?and, increasingly, the Chinese are exhibiting a precocious talent for subversive activities. China itself is evolving into a peculiar mix, as sinologist Francois Godement terms, ?of societal freedom, political control and Big Brother governance?. Its ?Generation X? has come of age, as sinologist Sheldon Lu says, when post-socialism, transnational capital and consumerism transformed the nation, thus removed from the core precepts of revolution?and daring in demands.
Economic affluence has translated into more people travelling abroad. In a recent edition of Time, Michael Schumnan notes that the number of Chinese travellers rose to 47.7 million in 2009, 54% more than in 2005; and they spent more than French, Japanese or Canadian travellers! China has the world?s largest numbers of Internet users (420 million in July 2010) and a penetration rate of 31.8%. The popularity of reality TV shows such as Wife Swap and Life Swap (2007), Web-based reality shows such as Soul Partners (on Mofile 2007), the celebrity stature of transsexual star of dance Jin Xing and the antics of Internet stars such as Furong JieJie (Sister Hibiscus) point to a dramatic shift. Although Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are blocked, Chinese equivalents have sprung up. Sina Weibo, China?s Twitter, is a popular microblog with 140 million registered users. Blogs, social networking are popular, as are video sharing sites such as Youku, 56.com, Mofile and Tudou.
Most of the above incidents were local gripes because broad-based coalitions necessary for large-scale movements, as sinologist Guobin Yang says, are forbidden. That China?s budget for internal security outstrips its military budget may be its saving grace. According to a recent Reuters report, there has been a 13.8% jump in China?s planned budget for internal security at an estimated 624.4 yuan ($95 billion) in 2011, which is in stark contrast to the China?s Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) budget that is set to rise 12.7% to 60.1 billion yuan ($91.5 billion).
The Party is China?s TINA (there is no alternative) factor for now but hardly an unenviable one, with no Plan B in sight, perhaps by design. While the sun has not set on the Party, it will go into the future both as uncrowned Emperor and slave of an increasingly wily people.
The author is a Singapore-based sinologist, currently a visiting fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi.Views are personal