Unrest Sharply Increasing Through Much Of China

Away from the shimmering facade of its golden coastal cities, China is seething with violent discontent.

New figures published in the Communist party magazine Outlook say that last year there was an average of 160 major incidents of social unrest every day in China's hinterland.

Many of these outbursts of peasant outrage involved tens of thousands of people and some carried on for days as riot squads using batons and tear gas attempted to restore order.

There is a common thread that sparks these uprisings. About 800 million of China's 1.3 billion people have yet to see any benefit from market reform while the corruption of local Communist party officials is ever more onerous.

What is also striking is the small and sometimes inconsequential incidents that set off the protests. This tends to suggest that hinterland China is a tinderbox, though it should be kept in mind in a country with such a large population that even very large numbers make small percentages.

At the end of last month a car crash in Henan province led to days of violent clashes between people of the Muslim minority Hui and the ethnic Han Chinese majority. At least a dozen people were killed and the authorities eventually declared martial law.

Also 10 days ago there were clashes between police and tens of thousands of farmers in Sichuan province who were protesting eviction from their land to make room for a dam project.

At the same time in Chongqing, an autonomous industrial city within Sichuan province, a dispute between a fruit delivery man and a market stall holder led to a riot in which local government offices were stormed by demonstrators and police cars set on fire.

In mid-October on the outskirts of Chongqing up to 50,000 demonstrators rampaged outside government offices to protest the near-fatal beating of a migrant worker by an official.

Such outbursts are not confined to the poverty-stricken hinterland. Early last month workers at an electronics plant at Shenzhen, the model economic development region bordering Hong Kong, staged an illegal strike protesting low wages. The demonstrations tied up the city for most of the day.

There is no reason to conclude the unrest is an immediate threat to Communist party rule in China, largely because there is as yet no national, unifying focus for the disturbances.

But some of the major uprisings in recent days and weeks show that text messaging, cell phones and the Internet are allowing outraged Chinese to organize mass demonstrations on short notice.

The Communist party and China's police forces have been watching with concern for some years the rising tide of unrest.

Reports I have obtained of police study groups show the security forces are sensitive about their position between the party and the people. There are examples in the past few days of police acting as intermediaries and seeking compromise between the demonstrators and officials.

There are, however, many more examples of police using blunt force as well as sophisticated suppression tactics such as "snatch squads" to grab protest leaders.

China's State Council Office, the equivalent of Canada's Privy Council Office, which is the intellectual and analytical bureaucracy for the cabinet, has been looking closely for years at the rising tide of unrest.

I have State Council figures from five years ago which show an average of five or six serious outbreaks of social unrest every day. Last year there were at least 160 a day and, according to the party magazine, that is an increase of 15 per cent over 2002.

Communist party leaders are divided on how to address the situation, but boxed in by the common determination not to dismantle one-party rule or provide responsible and accountable government that might deal with corruption.

Even the most bullish outside supporters of China are beginning to warn of the threat of political instability.

Simon Murray, an adviser to the king of the Chinese economic diaspora, Li Ka-shing, recently told a Toronto audience the fear is of a coordinated national uprising as happened in 1989.

"If that starts rolling, China goes backwards," Murray said.