China Law Blog

This one is playing out as I would have expected. Though I chose the first, due to my connection with the countryside, number 2 is running out ahead by a few percentage points and for very good reasons. I still think the tinder box of the impoverished is, as it has always been, a potential flashpoint that could clear the decks. Democracy, as any China watcher who pays attention would expect, is so far back in the pack as to be barely negligible. Given a democratic choice to choose a leader, I believe that the majority of Chinese would choose a benevolent dictator, or, to state it more accurately, the Confucian ideal of the ideal ruler. You go with what you think you know, and democracy is still the great unknowable, which has been so effectively demonized as to be virtually an impossibility.

"Given a democratic choice to choose a leader, I believe that the majority of Chinese would choose a benevolent dictator, or, to state it more accurately, the Confucian ideal of the ideal ruler."

As long as the benevolent dictator or ideal Confucian ruler has been put democratically on power, and in extreme case be put democratically out of power, that would be better situation than the current one.

"You go with what you think you know, and democracy is still the great unknowable, which has been so effectively demonized as to be virtually an impossibility."
I may be going against common wisdom, but I consider the real problem is the lack of escape valves available in a democracy to prevent tension to build up to a dangerous level.

Look to India, they have dire problems there, but there is not a build up of social pressure that could become explosive.

In China they are trying to provide as many jobs and growth as possible to legitimate the grasp on power of the party. But by doing so, turning even faster round and round in a vicious circle.

Greater legitimacy of the government could provide a much needed buffer to cushion the internal tensions of the development of China, and also make it easier to implement a more "rational" economic growth at the cost of maybe some initial greater pain.

What could be a solution?
Implement a more representative government in local areas?
Let the party for the big government things? Even use the filter of local elections to select the best persons?
Or maybe is the conflict of interests between local and central power too strong?
Central-->Local: If you support me I let you do anything to get rich
Local-->Central: if you let me get rich no matter the means, I will support you.

Terrible dilemma. Hope smarter people than we in China are considering these issues.

"Given a democratic choice to choose a leader, I believe that the majority of Chinese would choose a benevolent dictator, or, to state it more accurately, the Confucian ideal of the ideal ruler."

Given a choice between living with their own dissatisfying political systems, and projecting their fantasies for a more efficient form of government onto a foreign culture, I believe that a large number of critical-minded Westerners are tempted to believe in "Confucianism" as a viable way to realize their own vision of what an ideal ruler is.

For this kind of person it's not important to provide evidence of what people in China actually think, or what "Confucianism" -a diverse philosophical and religious tradition- actually is.

If I had to make a quick ranking of my top three, two from the Globalist list and adding one 'write-in', it would look something like this:

1) Environmental degradation from both industrialization and poorly-planned development. This one is tough to solve because there is sufficient blame to go around. The world has outsourced a lot of its manufacturing (and its byproduct: pollution) to China in the past twenty-five years, and at the same time, the Chinese government, especially at the local levels, has shown a willingness to cater to this demand by gutting environmental regulations of any meaning in the rush to attract investment.

2) Population/resource pressures. Anyone with a cursory knowledge of Chinese history knows that population pressure on available resources has been a driving force of change/calamity many times in the past. (cf. the mid- to late-19th century.) This doesn't make the top of the list only because the current government is more aware and sensitive to this problem than past regimes. That said, recent and recurring conflicts over land and water usage in rural areas should be a reminder that this issue very much remains a source of potential instability.

3) It's not on the list, but Education. I know I'm a teacher and so slightly biased here, but good schools are so important to sustaining any country's advancement and development. Education in the PRC still remains decent compared to countries of equivalent per capita GDP, but the recent slash in government spending on rural education, class and income inequalities especially between urban and rural areas, low teacher salaries, a continuing emphasis on indoctrination as well as censorship in the classroom, and (related to the last item) a key weakness in the teaching of critical thinking and analytical skills at all levels, all are cause of concern. (A set of problems in education hardly unique to China, but since the Globalist asked...)

A still-sizable poor population that has been left behind

I choose this one based on nothing more than my own observations living here. Growth in city populations due to migrations from the countryside are pushing infrastructures to the limit. This could also be tied in to jobs, but I sense the bigger social problem stemming the "have-nots" becoming more frustrated with missing out on the new wealth.

There's a lot more hostility and anger on the streets than there was just two or three years ago. Sometimes I think the government should not have relaxed hukou regulations like they did. Crime is getting out of hand, and no one believes anymore the trickle down theory that the Chinese government was pushing ("a few must get rich first, then prosperity to everyone else will follow").

On the other hand, the Chinese have had a long history of managing unstable populations, so this is something they have some experience with. Large scale environmental degradation is a new beast, and harder for the Chinese to understand as serious. Given the distinction in the minds of Chinese people between 'Chinese' medicine and 'Western' medicine, people may not be able to understand how environmental problems are anything more than things becoming "dirty".

People may rise up, but the government can quell them, shame the people, find some scapegoats, and distort what caused the turmoil in the first place. Environmental toxicity can't be turned around as quickly.

I suppose a better answer to the poll question would be: whichever problem is easier to conceal.

Great, now I'm sounding like Nanherouchuan. I shouldn't post on Monday morning without coffee.

I think rural poverty might not be such a potent destabilizing factor in itself. Peasant farmers have always been poor, and have evolved ways of coping with their circumstances - subsisting largely on a barter rather than a cash economy. Poverty only becomes a big problem when the poor become more keenly aware of the income gap between themselves and the better-off - and when they see no means of closing that gap; i.e., when they move to urban centres, and struggle to find decently paid employment. Since the 'grand plan' is to migrate more than half of the rural population into urban areas over the next 30 or 40 years, providing enough employment opportunities is going to be a huge challenge.

Environmental degradation is, alas, probably not such a pressing concern to the government because it is not likely to engender widespread social unrest (although I suppose it might, if the average life expectancy plummets by 20 or 30 years).

I'm with Jeremiah on the education issue. The Chinese government seems to be uncannily adept at finding make-do-and-mend solutions for problems of population shift and managing the economy; but the country's progress to true 'superpower' status is massively hindered by the shortcomings in its education system.

The three most important priorities for Chinese people are:

1. Jobs
2. Jobs
3. Jobs

Jobs could within the context of the discussion be expanded to Economic Opportunities, since, as one Chinese friend once told me, "99% of Chinese people want to own their own business." The priority placed on economic opportunity works directly on the issue of the disparity between the monied and the poor.

Chinese people have an extraordinary capacity to endure hardship in pursuit of increasing their wealth. Limbs pretty much have to be falling off, or, in the case of some small towns, people have to endure terrible skin rashes or high cancer rates before they'll begin protesting environmental degradation. Even Chinese educated with work experience in the West have expressed to me that the price of environmental degradation and people's health is worth catching up with the Zhang's in Beijing and the Jones's in the States.

Very few Chinese people outside the intelligentsia in Beijing clamor for democracy, especially in the second-, third- and x-tier cities. Even in Shanghai, the average Chinese is too busy making money to worry about the Vote. Yes, many are frustrated with local government corruption, but as long as they figure they can get their own one day, they are willing to put up with a feudal system they celebrate today in song, soap operas, movies and "Chinese sayings."

Population, population, population.
No matter which of the The Globalist's choices you favor, the overwhelming common denominator is the massive and growing population which is consuming and depleting non-renewable resources and competing for jobs, self-preservation, and, yes, add this to your lists, dignity.

Democratic change in the face of life-and-death struggles to survive and prosper, both physically and spiritually? It's not what most Chinese yearn for. It's just a handy bargaining chip for Anglo-Saxon governments in North America and Northern Europe.