President Hu Jintao on Tuesday spoke like Harold Macmillan, the British prime minister of the 1950s, who famously told his people that they had never had it so good. Under Hu’s leadership in the past five years, he said, ”China’s overall strength grew considerably and people enjoyed more tangible benefits. China’s international standing and influence rose notably.” Perhaps he should be called Super-Hu just as Macmillan was known as Super-Mac and portrayed by cartoonists as a caped crusader.
Yet the ”trust us, all will be well” message from the Communist Party’s 17th congress is not entirely convincing. Experts say China is entering a critical 15-month period at home and abroad. And while Hu admitted the country faced ”unprecedented challenges”, his prescription — increased, centralised party control and vaguely worded promises of greater accountability — does not look like the answer.
External pressure on Beijing is mounting, driven by perceptions that it will do almost anything to make next year’s Olympic Games a success. The concerted international effort to induce China to get tough with its wayward client generals in Burma is but one example of this linkage.
The squeeze is on in numerous other directions. George Bush this week became the first United States president to invite the Dalai Lama to a public meeting at the White House. The talks, following a similar move last month by Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, are a pointed signal to Beijing that, in Western eyes, Tibet’s lost independence is not necessarily a lost cause.
Broader civil rights issues are coming into focus. Human Rights Watch reported this month that internal repression, including abduction and violent intimidation, was intensifying. ”In March, Yu Hongyuan, the Olympics security protection centre’s commander-in-chief, advocated ‘harshly penalising one person in order to … frighten many more into submission’ to ensure the success of the congress, the Games and 60th anniversary celebrations of the People’s Republic in 2009,” Human Rights Watch said.
Having given ground on its support for Sudan’s government, after Darfur campaigners threatened to label the Olympics the ”Genocide Games”, Beijing is being pushed to do more. The US in particular is relentlessly stressing China’s responsibility as an emerging global power to cooperate on shared problems such as Iran and North Korea’s nuclear activities.
Slowly but surely, Beijing’s non-aligned era doctrine of non-interference and non-intervention in other countries’ affairs, born of bitter national experience, is crumbling before a mixture of realpolitik and moralistic arm-twisting.
This evolution has not gone unnoticed in Taiwan. Not coincidentally, it mounted its first national day military parade in 16 years last week and has stepped up its bid for UN membership. China has regularly threatened Taiwan, which it regards as a breakaway province, with attack. But on Tuesday Hu sounded almost conciliatory.
Internal challenges to party control are also multiplying. After years of rapid growth, the economy shows signs of over-heating and inflation is rising. According to Albert Keidel of the Carnegie Endowment, food prices in July rose by 15%. Pork went up by 90%, instant noodles by 20%, and cooking oil and eggs by 30%. ”These are explosive price increases in key consumer categories,” he said.
”China’s economy looks today much as it did before the inflationary catastrophes of 1988-89 and 1993-1996 … If inflation gets out of control, draconian steps to suppress it could cause hardship and social unrest.”
According to Elizabeth Economy in Foreign Affairs journal, China’s severe environmental problems could yet result in a great leap backward. She cited Pan Yue, a senior official, who warned that ”the [economic] miracle will end soon because the environment can no longer keep pace”.
But Beijing’s initiatives were routinely ignored by greedy local officials, she said. ”Turning the environmental situation around will require something far more difficult than setting targets and spending money; it will require revolutionary bottom-up political and economic reforms.”
As Hu made very clear on Tuesday, change of that order is not on the cards. It seems this great helmsman is steering with his eyes tight shut. — Â