generalspeaking

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Harmonious Relations

Above all, this is what China's ruling Communist Politboro seeks; social harmony. To achieve that end, they have denied strenuously that China, in sending Han Chinese to Tibet to overwhelm the population with their presence is attempting to do on a social order what their political might has not achieved; protests continue in Tibet, as they do in other parts of the country where Uighur Chinese Muslims struggle against the majority Han Chinese.

But unrest doesn't stop there, for villagers are angry at their local Communist hierarchy for taking their land. And while in China's great urban centres there is employment, it is scarcer in the countryside. Compounded by the fact that a one-child policy has favoured male children resulting in a shortage of marriageable females, leaving the country with the growing problem of unattached males and discontent.

China's problems are myriad, from environmental pollution to sub-par construction methods and materials. When earthquakes occur and poorly built rural schools collapse on schoolchildren, blame is placed where it belongs, to the discomfort of the Chinese elite. And the growing middle class is balanced against those still seeking employment, living in poverty.

Those who protest against the manufacture of foodstuffs whose basic whole ingredients have been tampered with creating a health threat through impure milk products and lead paint used on children's toys and jewellery, have awakened the concern of the authorities. Incidents of abducted homeless men and children, forcing them into slave labour do no credit to the society.

Nor do the claims of harvesting prisoners' viscera for transplantation on behalf of the wealthy, and for medical tourists who receive first-rate hospitalization and surgical treatment unlike what is available to the ordinary Chinese. And now that the changing of the old guard to the new has focused attention on China, with the revelations of corruption at the very highest level, the Chinese people have become restive.

They resent the wealth acquired by those who are supposed to have given themselves over to service of their country, elevated to the highest political posts of the country. The focus on China as a growing military power with great wealth invested in producing high-tech, advanced weaponry, ships, fighter planes and helicopters and armaments to the detriment of lack of services like health care have angered people.

As in any other developing country there is a cadre of the fortunate wealthy and a growing incidence of poverty among greater numbers of people, despite the hugely aspirational strides forward that China has seen in the last three decades when it was decided to marry Communism with capitalism, in the wake of China taking possession of Hong Kong.

Both the outgoing leaders and those inheriting their posts speak of reform. And then they speak against reform that is too rapid. Should reform eventually lead the way to greater political respect to human rights obligations that transformation would reassure China's trading partners, among others.

On the other hand, China's neighbours; South Korea, the Philippines, Japan and others shrink in dismay at the open assertions by China that it owns the South China Sea and the mineral and energy-resource riches present there for the taking. And China is intent on taking as much of it all as it can manage, for its perceived needs are great.