China Development Brief - Editorial

Editorial: Riots underline development dilemmas

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 06:14:45 +0100

Violent protests this month in Guangxi’s Bobai (博白) County—sparked, according to international press reports, by heavy-handed implementation of birth control rules—are a tragic reminder of the pain caused by a policy that has, nevertheless, played a key role in China’s social and economic transformation.

Editorial: "GONGOs” are here to stay, but need to reform and open up

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 06:17:53 +0100

Non profit organisations established by the Government of China to mobilise resources for public benefit work are frequently regarded by foreigners as fake, “Government-Organised NGOs.” But the signs are that, as the community of more autonomous, “grassroots” groups mushrooms and spreads, China’s political leadership sees all the more reason to maintain its own stake in the non profit sector. This mirrors China’s management of its industrial sectors and in some ways it makes sense.

Editorial: Show some respect, Amnesty

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 02:53:42 +0100

Rural migrants to Chinese cities are having a very tough time, according to a report issued in March by Amnesty International. True enough. But hardly news to anyone at all familiar with the subject. Any well-informed broadsheet newspaper reader in the West knows this already, and so of course do all Chinese people who have been out of their village. So what was the point?

Editorial: It's a community, not a movement

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 10:12:14 +0000

A paper published last year in The China Quarterly concludes, on the basis of interviews with Chinese university students, that “There is little likelihood of environmentalism among students transforming into an independent grassroots movement or becoming a source of pressure for political change.” The most revealing aspect of this study is not the finding but the fact that the researchers chose to pursue such a line of enquiry.

Why are watchers of China’s civil society so preoccupied with looking for signs of nascent, oppositional movements? The prevailing paradigm for social and political change, it seems, sees a necessary role at some point for barricades (or, at least, a “non-violent” variant.) Such a view is not only anathema to the Chinese authorities, inviting the kind of heightened security surveillance that we have seen over the last 18 months, it also implicitly discards—as naïvely idealistic, no doubt—the hope that rational debate and enlightened self-interest may deliver meaningful progress. Yet in a world that is melting at the seams that may be our best hope.

Editorial: Press freedom is good news for business

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 09:47:21 +0000

Relaxation of controls on foreign journalists in China—intended, it seems, to promote “harmonious” reporting during the Olympics—is a welcome sign that the government is alert to the power of global public opinion and recognises the need for a more sophisticated approach to news management. This may be good news for Chinese journalists too if it proves to be the harbinger of greater domestic freedoms—which are necessary for the profession to develop and become the foundation for a globally competitive, Chinese media industry.

International friendship needs people-to-people links

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 02:11:52 +0000

November’s China-Africa summit in Beijing was like a coming-out ball for China as a new global force. As well as substantially boosting aid, trade and political ties, it further isolated Taiwan’s pro-independence movement and, as a bonus, gave Beijing extra, pre-Olympics practice in hosting major international events. But there was no sign of civil society at the party; and they should be invited next time.

Editorial: Greens should think twice before accepting Ford Motors money

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 09:54:25 +0100

In October the Ford Motor Company will, for the sixth year in succession, award grants to Chinese environmentalists and green NGOs in recognition of their ongoing contribution to sustainable development. This year, the car manufacturer is increasing the total prize money to CNY 1.7 million (USD 214,000) which is expected to be divided between fifteen organizations

Time to reconsider the meaning of “autonomy”

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 12:55:56 +0100

In 1853, Karl Marx argued in the New York Daily Tribune that the introduction of railways to India would speed the “annihilation of old Asiatic society and the laying the material foundations of Western society in Asia.” This is an apposite thought to consider in the month that sees the opening of the world’s highest railway, linking eastern China, for the first time, to Lhasa in Tibet.

Editorial: It’s not “construction” that rural China needs

Tue, 02 May 2006 03:36:54 +0100

The recent pledge by China’s top leaders to “construct a new socialist countryside” (建设社会主义新农村) appears designed to stem a growing tide of rural unrest and to address the concerns of urban intellectuals who, for several years, have been harping on “three problems of agriculture” (三农). But it is not yet clear whether the plan amounts to more than a rhetorical acknowledgement of growing “imbalances” in income and opportunity; and the reference to “construction”(建设) is depressingly familiar.

Editorial: Environmental NGOs hibernate through winter of discontent

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 00:42:09 +0100

Three months ago, we asked whether the toxic spill in the Songhua River might prove a defining moment in the creation of a citizens’ environmental movement in China. A preliminary survey of the evidence suggests that the answer is no—but perhaps that’s for the best, for the challenges ahead will require a more nuanced relationship with the state.

Editorial: Not everyone will leave the land—but those who stay will need the right to organise

Tue, 02 May 2006 11:05:31 +0100

China’s 150 million-strong ‘floating population’ of rural migrants will swell, over the next 15 years, to “well over 200 million” according to the 2005 China Human Development Report. The influx of migrants, the report tells us, has already caused the urban population to grow from 17.9% of China’s total in 1978 to 41.8% of the total in 2004—even though most migrants remain largely marginalised, officially designated as ‘farmers’ whatever their actual occupation.

Migrants typically work long hours for low pay in dirty, difficult or dangerous jobs, endure dingy accommodation without essential services, and suffer separation from loved ones. (Recent research by international child welfare NGO, PLAN, shows that up to half of all children in rural areas have one or more parents working away from home.) Nevertheless, there is a widespread assumption that migration and urbanisation are inevitable processes that represent China’s future, as droves of people leave behind what Marx and Engels memorably called “the idiocy of rural life.”

Editorial: Accountability is the key to health sector reform

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 04:22:57 +0000

The Chinese government now seems ready to accept that health ‘reforms,’ which have effectively privatised the public health system over the last 25 years, have failed to produce optimal, or even tolerable, outcomes for the public at large. With 70% of the population paying out of pocket for all medical expenses—but often unable to afford spiralling costs—the health gains that came from rising incomes and better nutrition in the early years of the reform period are now being eroded. Evidence is accumulating that rural infant and mat-ernal mortality have been on the rise since the late 1990s, and medical bills are a major factor in both rural and urban poverty. The central government knows this well enough from recently surveys and reports, the most damning of which have not yet been made public.

Editorial: 'CSR' will not be delivered by businesses alone

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 04:23:41 +0000

A recent spate of conferences and workshops (see text box) has served to underline how quickly the idea of ‘corporate social responsibility’ is being taken up in China—much more readily than was the idea of ‘civil society’ when it became intellectually fashionable across much of the rest of the world in the 1990s.

Editorial: Leadership is necessary, but not sufficient, for social justice

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 04:23:07 +0000

Eight years ago, in a suite of 'China 2020' reports, the World Bank suggested that with sustained and well-managed growth China could, by 2020, achieve average living standards comparable to those of Portugal in 1997. This year's UN Human Development Report notes that Shanghai has already reached that benchmark-but that in Guizhou average living standards remain roughly comparable to those of Namibia. The growing disparity in living standards and opportunities between urban and rural and coastal and inland areas are widely recognised as major 'challenges' for China's future development.

Editorial: Under scrutiny, NGOs should relax and put their case patiently

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 04:23:00 +0000

Chinese government concern over ‘colour revolutions’ in countries of the former Soviet Union has prompted an ongoing investigation of international NGOs that support work in China and of local organisations that receive funding from overseas (and especially from the USA). It appears that social scientists and State Security officials have been ordered to scrutinise NGO activity, in what international media are beginning to describe as a “crackdown.”