What does the evidence say?

China on my mind

I wrote last week about the horror of people dying at a sporting venue when a driver mowed over them following what he saw as a disappointing divorce judgment. Two further “mass events”, one a stabbing and the other yet another car murder, happened since. The consequence last week was that authorities worry a great deal that these seemingly random events in an age of social downturn have some sort of common link. Discontent as a phenomenon clearly is a link but, as usual, the paranoid government in Beijing wonders if something more sinister (a.k.a. Coordinated) is underway. They also scurried to clear evidence of any kind which could incite others to similar action or show that the Party was helpless to prevent it.

I described initial vehicular attack on 13 November in “security: collective versus individuals” at

https://cynthiawatson.substack.com/p/security-collective-versus-individuals

Over nine subsequent days, a man stabbed 8 in the eastern city of Wuxi, followed earlier this week with yet another guy plowing into young children outside their school in Changde the day before yesterday. This last incident resulted in many injured before police hauled him away but I did not see any deaths noted.

We are hardly in the position to accuse others of random violence because our record of mass shootings, while either less common all of a sudden or simply inuring because of its frequency, are a uniquely American badge of horror. Our response, radically different from China’s, is to offer “thoughts and prayers” en lieu government action for the most part. We weigh civil rights (to bear arms as individuals) radically differently than China does, of course. Additionally, China is so much more hypersensitive to any form of civil disorder meaning this increasing number of attacks unnerves officials at all levels.

Bloomberg.com reports this morning that protests in China rose by 27% before Xi Jinping reversed course to introduce a stimulus package in September aimed at ameliorating conditions in the stagnating economy. In particular, the China Dissent Monitor of the Freedom House highlighted the role that the flailing property sector is playing both in the economy teetering and in the social backlash appearing in high visibility incidents across the country.

Further, researchers identified more than 1,800 protests involving unpaid workers in China, further evidence that the economic growth produced by the Four Modernizations is far less successful today.

Those studying the Middle Kingdom knew that the Party ended its tradition of publishing statistics on “mass incidents” more than fifteen years ago and the Party continues trying to whitewash any public awareness of these occurrences. But the results are clear to those experiencing them and China does still allow foreign reporting beyond the official press agency, Xinhua.

The employment news this week is hardly better for Zhongnanhai, the CCP leadership compound northwest of the Forbidden City. The daily news letter Semafor this morning published a graphic on university graduates in the Middle Kingdom struggling to find jobs with the number of people searching for employment climbing to 12.22 million. Semafor notes this means 17.6% youth unemployment is still escalating.

Most curious was an anecdote where a recruiter asked to see a candidate’s phone to check some of what has become known as the “social credit score” information. This is data Beijing weighs, via employers among several sources, about someone being a “responsible” citizen who won’t put his or her interests above society’s harmony. In particular, the recruiter wondered how much time the student spends on the phone since that could indicate a lax worth ethic. So far, this all seems consistently Xi Jinping’s China so it should have surprised no one.

However, the candidate opined “I don’t think this is a rational standard”. Whao. Time on one’s phone doesn’t sound like a rational standard to me, either, for offering a job but instead highlights the real concern China’s employers have: determining who could be a risky hire for fear of organizing, ignoring rules, and the like. This provides evidence the Party will extract from any sorts of indications someone is not completely compliant with a system valuing order over personal desires or requirements.

I offer this as three hints at conditions underway not to engender confidence on our part that China is about to collapse as I do not believe that the case. While the PRC economy is not longer reaching stratospheric levels each month or year, growth rates remain sustained at roughly 4%-Probably. Without transparency, one never knows the true value of the government’s statistics.

We do know, however, that this sense of futility and uncertainty do appear expanding across China. It’s seductive for us to focus on the shipbuilding numbers alone or the propensity for Chinese hyper-rich to jet around the world with phenomenal accrued profits from the economic growth the country has legitimately created—or the associated corruption therein. But things do seem “off” in some small but growing ways.

Yes, Chinese citizens are almost every one living in better conditions than was true when Mao died in 1976. But the CCP leadership will probably increasingly restrict the expectations the average person has in hopes of somehow preventing disappointments leading to violence as the future no longer appears guaranteed to be better for the next generation than it is now. CCP officials are struggling to provide evidence to showcase Xi’s promised rejuvenation of the Chinese nation as it applies to people through their daily lives. Those effects of Xi’s governance are a trade off for the Chinese people having no political voice. At least as their standards of living and sense of hope rose, they were getting something in return for their sacrifice of power. Now, apparently not so much.

We can’t know precisely how this will manifest in policy choices but I can’t imagine these incidents won’t weigh on leaders’s minds based on their prior behavior.

This may sound rather familiar, actually. Maybe China is becoming more like the west than we realized? That might be one interpretation but so many things happen in this vast place at the same time.

I welcome your thoughts on this column or any others. Thank you for taking time to read today’s Actions. Thank you for subscribing if you do so as your financial support keeps this effort afloat.

We had rain last night which is a rare but celebratory event. The sunrise was a happy one.

Be well and be safe. FIN

ANG Li, “Vehicle hits students outside elementary school in Central China”, NewYorkTimes.com, 19 November 2024, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/asia/100000009834156/china-car-attack.html

“China’s job hunt worsens”, Semafor.com, 21 November 2024, retrieved at https://www.semafor.com/newsletter/11/21/2024/semafor-flagship-spoiled-children-on-a-hedonic-treadmill?utm_source=nowshare&utm_medium=flagship&utm_campaign=flagshipnumbered5#f

Rebecca Chong Wilkins, “China’s Protests Spoke 27% in Months Before Xi’s Stimulus Push”, Bloomberg.com, 21 November 2024, retrieved at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-21/china-protests-spiked-27-in-months-before-xi-s-stimulus-push?cmpid=BBD112124_politics&embedded-checkout=true