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225m reasons for China’s leaders to worry

Jul 9th 2016 | 

BEFORE the late 1990s China barely had a middle class. In 2000, 5m households made between $11,500 and $43,000 a year in current dollars; today 225m do. By 2020 the ranks of the Chinese middle class may well outnumber Europeans. This stunning development has boosted growth around the world and transformed China. Paddyfields have given way to skyscrapers, bicycles to traffic jams. An inward-looking nation has grown more cosmopolitan: last year Chinese people took 120m trips abroad, a fourfold rise in a decade. A vast Chinese chattering class has sprung up on social media.

However, something is missing. In other authoritarian countries that grew rich, the new middle classes demanded political change. In South Korea student-led protests in the 1980s helped end military rule. In Taiwan in the 1990s middle-class demands for democracy led an authoritarian government to allow free elections.

Many pundits believe that China is an exception to this pattern. Plenty of Chinese cities are now as rich as South Korea and Taiwan were when they began to change. Yet, since tanks crushed protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, China has seen no big rallies for democracy. China’s president, Xi Jinping, has shown nothing but contempt for democratic politics.

There is evidence that this approach works. The hardline Mr Xi is widely admired in China as a strongman and a fighter against corruption. Few middle-class Chinese people say they want democracy, and not just because speaking up might get them into trouble. Many look at the chaos that followed the Arab spring, and recoil. Some see Britain’s decision to leave the European Union as a sign that ordinary voters cannot be trusted to resolve complex political questions. The Chinese government may be ruthless towards its critics, but at least it lets its people make money. So long as they keep out of politics, they can say and do pretty much what they want.

Anxious times

Scratch the surface, however, and China’s middle class is far from content (see our special report in this issue). Its members are prosperous, but they feel insecure. They worry about who will look after them when they grow old; most couples have only one child, and the public safety-net is rudimentary. They fret that, if they fall ill, hospital bills may wipe out their wealth. If they own a home, as 80% of them do, they fear losing it; property rights in China can be overturned at the whim of a greedy official. They worry about their savings, too; banks offer derisory interest rates and alternative investments are regulated badly or not at all. No Ponzi scheme in history ensnared more investors than the one that collapsed in China in January.

Many middle-class Chinese are also angry. Plenty scoff when they are force-fed Marxism. Even more rage about corruption, which blights every industry and activity, and about nepotism, which rewards connections over talent and hard work. Nearly all fume about pollution, which clogs their lungs, shortens their lives and harms their children. They cannot help noticing that some polluters with important friends foul the air, soil and water with impunity.

And some feel frustrated. China has well over 2m non-governmental organisations. Many of those working for them are middle-class people trying to make their society better, independently of the party. Some are agitating for a cleaner environment, for fairer treatment of workers, or for an end to discrimination against women, or gay people, or migrants. None of these groups openly challenges the party’s monopoly of power, but they often object to the way it wields it.

The party understands that the middle class, which includes many of its 88m members, is the bedrock of its support. When Mr Xi came to power in 2012, he echoed America with inspiring pro-middle-class talk of a “Chinese dream”. The party gauges public opinion in an attempt to respond to expectations and relieve social pressures.

Even so, it is hard to imagine China’s problems being solved without more transparent, accountable government. Without the rule of law—which Mr Xi professes to believe in—no individual’s property or person can truly be safe. Without a more open system of government, corruption cannot systematically be detected and stamped out. And without freedom of speech, the NGOs will not bring about change.

The middle rages

After thousands of years of tumultuous history and more recent memories of the bloody Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, the Chinese often say that they have a deeply ingrained fear of chaos. But nearly half of all people living in cities are under 35. They know little about Mao-era anarchy. When they feel the government is not listening, some are willing to stand up and complain. Take the thousands of middle-class people in the southern Chinese town of Lubu, who protested on July 3rd over plans to build a waste-incinerator there. They battled with police and tried to storm government offices.

Such protests are common. There were 180,000 in 2010, according to Tsinghua University, since when there have been no good estimates. When growth was rapid, stability followed, but as the economy slows, unrest is likely to spread, especially as the party must make hard choices like shutting factories, restructuring state-owned enterprises and curbing pollution.

Ultimately the fate of middle-class protests is likely to depend on the party elite. The pro-democracy movement of 1989 took off because some of its members also favoured reform. There is no sign of another Tiananmen, but there are tensions within the leadership. Mr Xi has made enemies with his anti-corruption purges, which seem to hit rivals harder than allies (a recent target is a former chief aide to Hu Jintao, his predecessor—see article). Mr Xi’s colleagues are jockeying for power.

The party may fend off challenges for many years. China’s vast state-security apparatus moves quickly to crush unrest. Yet to rely on repression alone would be a mistake. China’s middle class will grow and so, too, will its demands for change. The party must start to meet those demands, or the world’s biggest middle class may yet destroy it.

2.25億個讓中國領導層擔憂的理由

作者：黃維德編譯 2016-07-25 經濟學人

1990年後期之前，中國幾乎沒有中產階級。2000年之時，中國有500萬個家庭年收入介於11,500美元和43,000美元；今日更多達2.25億。

2.25億個中產階級，這是極為驚人的發展，不但刺激全球各地的成長，也讓中國得以脫胎換骨。

然而，那缺了一些東西。

在其他致富的威權國家，新出現的中產階級會要求政治變革；1980年代的南韓學生示威，協助終結了軍事專政；1990年代，台灣中產階級要求民主，促使威權政府允許自由選舉。

1989年天安門事件至今，中國就沒有出現大型民主示威。要求民主的中產階級並不多，而且原因不只是開口可能會引來麻煩；許多人看見了阿拉伯之春帶來的混亂，有些人認為英國脫歐證明，一般選民無法處理複雜的政治問題。

中國政府或許對批評者殘忍無情，但至少它會讓民眾賺錢；只要遠離政治，想說什麼、想做什麼都沒關係。

然而，中國的中產階級其實並不滿足。社會安全網不足等問題，讓他們富裕卻缺乏安全感。貪汙、裙帶主義、汙染等問題，也他們也十分憤怒。

中國擁有超過200萬個非政府組織，許多在那裡工作的人，正是希望改善社會的中產階級；這些組織不會公開挑戰共產黨的權力獨佔，但它們常反對共產黨運用權力的方式。

共產黨知道中產階級的重要性，亦試圖回應民眾期待以減輕社會壓力。即使如此，沒有更透明、更負責任的政府，中國的問題實在很難解決。沒有法治，人身和財產就沒有真正的安全；沒有更公開的政府系統，貪汙自然難以消除；沒有言論自由，非政府組織亦無法帶來變革。

歷經數千年騷亂的歷史，以及更近期、1960年代的文化大革命，中國人常說，他們非常害怕混亂。然而，近半數城市居民不到35歲，他們不太知道毛澤東時代的混亂狀態。當他們覺得政治沒有在聽的時候，有些人也會願意挺身抱怨，例如，數萬名祿步鎮的中產階級就在7月3日發動示威，反對建造垃圾焚燒發電廠。

這類示威十分常見。成長快速，安定亦隨之而來；但在經濟成長走緩之時，混亂也很有可能擴散。

最終，中國中產階級的命運為何，可能還是得取決於共產黨的精英階層。

民主運動於1989年起飛，原因即為部分共產黨成員支持改革。目前沒有再次發生天安門事件的跡象，但中國領導層內部的情況也相當緊繃。習近平的肅貪行動似乎是以政治對手為主要目標，因而樹立了不少敵人；領導高層也正在爭奪權力。

中國政府擁有強大的國安組織，共產黨應該還是可以繼續掌權許多年，但單靠壓制絕非良方。中國的中產階級會增長，改革的呼聲亦是如此；共產黨必須開始滿足這些需求，否則，全球最大的中產階級仍有可能會毀了共產黨。