Editors Note: This article is an op-ed written by Singapore professor Ji Yuan that first appeared in the Singapore paper Lianhe Zaobao. The author reflects on the seemingly contradictory nature of China's 30+ years of economic development and the country's increasingly vocal discontent over the accompanying social problems.

Photo: olings

China's present situation is best explained using the famous words of Charles Dickens: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Every time I return to China, I see cities and villages that are, seemingly at unreal speeds, going through earth-shattering changes. My wife has similar feelings. Being from Norway, she always jokes that looking out of the front window of her house, she will still occasionally see horse-drawn carts slowly passing by along the narrowly paved roads that were build in the Middle Ages. When we go to China each year, we feel like "villagers going to the city for the first time" who are taken aback by how modern everything is and fast everything is changing.

China's development is not all roses

However, in addition to this impressive scale of development, I can also see that the whole of China seems to be full of anger and brutality. Even at a New Year's dinner with some friends, the topic of conversation still kept returning to them airing out their grievances with China. What is most strange about this situation to me is that these people (and the others like them) are not part of some group that "lost everything" after the reforms in the 1980s; in fact, one could say these people benefited from the reforms. But they are still very dissatisfied with the present society, to the extent that many are seriously considering future emigration. It seems they believe that today's "booming" development in China will become tomorrow's sinking ship.

Even more incredible is the "real" lower class' use of violence as a form of protest. Last year, the son of a previous colleague of my father was involved in one of those "mass disturbances" in Anhui. This normally well-behaved, obedient and timid boy, who had just graduated from middle school, unexpectedly committed arson at a local carnival, was arrested, and went to jail. If you look at the discussions on the Internet you will see a similar anger being expressed. Regardless of whether it is on one of China's major portals, or just a random forum, blog, or Weibo account, as long as the keywords relate to the government, officials, wealthy, power, or influence, the post inevitably provokes a flood of angry responses.

If this surge of incensed messages truly does represent the Chinese popular will, well, then no doubt China is like a volcano waiting to erupt. As such, it is not surprising to see the country's elite quickening their own emigration plans. And for much of China's middle class, the fear of not knowing what the future holds has surprisingly become an important psychological factor in causing them many sleepless nights.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other?

In the future, which path for returning to a "harmonious society" with "orderly development" should China choose? It seems there are two models that are vying for the right. In the first model, some cities are reflecting on the reforms that began in the 1980s, and particularly on the last 20 years of "successes" and "failures". Their reconsideration is directed against the major reforms, which were supposed to help China reform and open up but seemingly did the opposite thing. The privatization of the state owned enterprises gobbled up all the country's assets. Educational, health care, and housing "reforms" all intensified the rich-poor wealth gap. The introduced GDP growth model was heavily based on industries that ran on the blood and sweat of the workers while pumping unregulated amounts of pollution into the country, and so on.

The popular will is extremely disgusted with this reality, and most believe that the people's livelihood should be the main focus of development. Political positions reflecting these views appear to be losing ground. The main contradiction in modern Chinese society is as follows: There is a gradually widening rich-poor gap in China because the "achievements" of the reforms have been monopolized by a small few in the elite class. At the same time, the lower-middle class is gradually being excluded from China's political decision-making process on these key issues.

The second model (which deeply contrasts with the first) believes, in short, that China should continue to move ahead with its present course of economic development. The reasoning is that as long as China continues along a path of such vigorous economic growth and rapidly rising GDP, the present conflicts will be resolved in the future.

Actually, both models have their own shortcomings. The first model basically emphasizes the use of governmental "brute force" to redistribute social resources, which would very likely affect the free development of the economy, and may also harm the rights of some citizens. Meanwhile, the second model greatly overlooks the worsening trend of "mass incidents" of complaint. Also, it has already been proven that the economic development of a country will continue with little regard to a widening gap between the rich and poor, which means that the odds of a "derailment" will go up.

There is no easy choice here. Actually, China's future path will inevitably play out like a long, slow game of chess between these two sides/models. But at any rate, I hope that China will be able to break the thousands-of-years-old cycle of the rich-poor gap leading to violent reform. I will close with another Dickens quote: "This might be the winter of despair, but it may also be the spring of hope".
 

Source: china.com.cn
 

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Keywords: China harmonious society China rich poor gap China economic development and social problems China social and economic contradictions