Senior Chinese Officials Acknowledge Rising Social Unrest, But Rule Out Political Liberalization

Three senior Chinese officials recently acknowledged rising social unrest in China and attributed its causes to economic grievances, failures on the part of local cadres, and rising rights consciousness by Chinese citizens, according to a series of articles (1, 2, 3, subscription required) in the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

In a speech before the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Zhou Yongkang, minister in charge of the public security bureau, noted that 74,000 public protests occurred in 2004, involving 3.67 million people. This total is a significant increase from the 58,000 protests involving 3 million people in 2003, and a seven-fold rise from the 10,000 protests recorded in 1994. Vice minister Chen Xiwen of the State Council's Development Research Center, in an interview with the SCMP, attributed the increase in the number of protests to a rise in the "democratic awareness" of farmers and failures of local officials. Similar comments by Zhou Yongkang suggest a willingness on the part of some Chinese officials to recognize growing social unrest and the extent to which it is a symptom of significant political, economic, and social problems.

Statements by other Chinese officials demonstrate that the government has not abandoned traditional means of social control to address social unrest, and have no plans to embrace political liberalization. Although he acknowledged that failures of lower-level officials have led to the recent rise in protests, Li Jingtian, the vice director of the Party's Central Organization Department, said that government authorities will continue to rely on the Party's "Advanced Education Campaign" launched earlier in 2005 to review and reform the behavior of local cadres. Vice minister Chen Xiwen also said in a separate SCMP article (subscription required), that the government would oppose any expansion of local democratic reforms beyond the village level, characterizing as illegal various local experiments that have attempted such an expansion.