| 11.07.2004 The Straits Times Is Beijing on the brink of social upheaval? Ask the Gini By Leslie Fong, Editor At Large THE recent riots in several Chinese provinces could well be the harbinger of the widespread social unrest Beijing fears most. On their own, these clashes, involving thousands, did not pose a real threat to stability - well, not yet - and were well within the capacity of China's armed police or wujing to put down. But the swiftness with which they flared up, and over relatively trivial incidents, suggests anger and frustration among ordinary folk are in serious danger of boiling over. Beijing ignores this at its peril. The underlying causes are well known and they range from rage against official corruption to resentment over a palpably unfair distribution of wealth - highly inflammable material that when lit, will lead to the kind of social explosion Beijing has nightmares about. What it wants to know badly now is when ignition can become almost spontaneous. In this regard, there is much for Beijing to worry about, especially if it has been listening to its own experts. These experts have been thinking hard about the signs to watch out for before a country as huge and complex as China begins the descent into strife and chaos. Some have come up with interesting theories. For example, Professor Niu Wenyuan of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a special adviser to the State Council, argues that empirical data shows a country is most prone to social unrest when its annual per capita income is between US$1,000 (S$1,660) and US$3,000. If he is right, then Beijing may be staring at trouble as China's per capita income last year was US$1,090, which places it inside the danger zone. Beijing ought to be familiar with Prof Niu's work, not least because he has devised a scientific model to predict the 'social ignition point' at which unrest will break out. According to him, there is no great science involved as, with computer simulation, many different scenarios can be worked out, based on different sets of social and economic indices. Using this technique, he and a team examined the Tiananmen incident on June 4, 1989, in which troops opened fire on thousands of demonstrators in the heart of Beijing. Their conclusion was that the ignition point was in January that year. Had the Chinese leadership acted then, it could still have headed off the large-scale protest that was to end in tragedy. Undoubtedly, many factors account for a country's social combustibility. A widening gap between rich and poor must surely be among the most important. On this score, the Gini coefficient, which is used widely by economists to gauge whether wealth is distributed fairly within a country, bears watching. On a scale of 0 to 1, with 0 denoting perfectly equal distribution of wealth, Prof Niu believes any country with a Gini coefficient of 0.4 or more is vulnerable. Chinese history bears him out. Gini was 0.61 at the start of the massive peasant revolt led by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong (1628-1645), which precipitated the collapse of the Ming dynasty. It was 0.57 at the beginning of the Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864) led by Christian evangelist Hong Xiuquan against Manchu rulers in the Qing dynasty. Even at 0.51, it was enough to feed the proletarian and peasant revolution mounted by Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party in the 1920s. So what has it been like in recent years? According to figures compiled by Chinese economists, Gini was 0.341 in 1988, 0.343 in 1990, 0.389 in 1995, 0.417 in 2000, 0.448 in 2002 and 0.457 last year. If the trend continues, it can spell trouble for China, and a China caught in the throes of social upheaval is bad news for the world as well. As it is, the number of protests across the country already rose to 58,000 last year, up 15 per cent from 2002. And that was the official count, which many analysts believe understates the gravity of the situation. Top Chinese leader Hu Jintao and his closest colleagues at the apex of power fully grasp the seriousness of the challenge the country faces. This is why he has put improving the lot of peasants and the urban poor, reducing the income gap between the haves and the have-nots and between regions, and rooting out corruption at the top of his agenda. Expect him to press ahead doggedly to meet these goals - as well as minimise all external problems that will distract him and his team from the all-important task of ensuring sustainable, equitable development for all Chinese. What President Hu has going for him, among other things, is the people's respect and support. The masses as well as the intelligentsia believe he and Premier Wen Jiabao genuinely care about ordinary folk, the laobaixing. But the Hu-Wen team will need a lot more than that for so monumental is their task. The world should wish them well. It is not in anyone's interest to see them fail - and China thrown into instability and chaos. |
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