China: The Chinese government will do whatever it takes to keep riots in check. The swift police response to the Xinjiang province fighting that left 156 dead and 1,400 in jail makes that clear. Yet Beijing’s economic policies, which enshrine the purblind pursuit of rapid growth above all else, may inflame the very uprisings they are designed to avoid.
Rioters in Xinjiang were angry, but not because they were poor or left behind. The province is relatively rich, with GDP per head of $5,385, higher than any virtually every non-coastal Chinese province. Nor has it lacked for fiscal stimulus, even before this year’s national Rmb4 trillion crisis package. Instead, race issues sparked the conflagration, as members of the Uygur ethnic population protested over a racially motivated revenge-killing in south China.
Where the economy does fuel unrest in China, it's not because of poverty so much as lack of equality. Xinjiang was the most income-unequal province in China over 1990-2005, according to a study by the Asian Development Bank. The region has seen a huge influx of Han Chinese, who many Uygurs accuse of diluting their culture and snatching plum jobs. The richer the rich, the greater the tensions.
Faltering Chinese growth, hurt by collapsing exports, could make such “mass incidents” more likely. Zhou Tianyong, a leading Communist Party scholar, warned last year that economic hardship would lead folk to redistribute the wealth themselves. The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 occurred in a year when GDP growth more than halved. And incidents increased 25 per cent and 67 per cent during 1997 and 1998, Asia’s last financial crisis.
But progress itself may also help foment revolt. Rising internet penetration is both a trapping of increased wealth and a big worry for Beijing. Blogs and user-generated channels such as China’s carbon-copy of Twitter – FanFou, which roughly translates as “have you eaten?” – add a quick-fire outlet for reportage, outrage and organisation.
China currently has to deal with ongoing ethnic resentment, increasing inequality and a suddenly faltering economy – including an estimated 23m migrant workers who have been left jobless. Beijing is putting more funds into social security, something it previously overlooked in its pursuit of rapid export-led growth – but results will take years.
In the meantime, it must handle not just the poor, but the poor who used not to be – a fractious constituency found not only in Xinjiang.