La Chine

[melodius]

Je propose d'exclure les moins de 12 ans du forum.

[Djerzinsky]

Je propose d'exclure les moins de 12 ans du forum.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

peut etre que je me trompe mais il me semble que ce gugusse a deja outrepassé son compte d'insulte dans ce sujet.

[melodius]

peut etre que je me trompe mais il me semble que ce gugusse a deja outrepassé son compte d'insulte dans ce sujet.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A mon humble avis, tu peux remplacer "dans ce sujet" par "sur ce forum".

[LaFéeC]

Par ailleurs je me fout pas mal d'être banni ou non, en effet

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ben voilà, LaFéeC sort sa baguette et exauce les voeux :

ADIOS DANTA KHAN

[melodius]

On dit les femmes indécises, mais ce n'est pas la première fois que je remarque que LaFéeC est le modo le plus couillu.

Reprenez-vous Messieurs !

[LaFéeC]

Les autres modos étaient plutot pour l'expulsion dès hier soir, j'ai calmé, j'ai averti DK, et suite à ses posts d'aujourd'hui, j'ai donné raison aux partisans de l'expulsion..

Donc en fait je n'ai été que l'executrice d'une décision masculine, arg, pov femme dominée

lol

[Taisei Yokusankai]

En ce qui concerne le dernier article soumis par AK: si je ne me trompe pas, c'est un article qui avait été traduit et publié sur un site comme checkpoint.ch ou un truc du genre, et le je lui trouve exactement le même défaut qu'à un autre de leurs articles, sur la remilitarisation du japon cette fois: dramatisation, over-dramatisation et exagérations. J'ai parfois l'impression que quand on parle de ces pays, les stéréotypes à la Edith Cresson (" Ils sont des fourmis qui passent leur journée à se demander comment nous baiser. ") sont toujours d'actualités, ce qui est un peu triste.

[Chitah]

En ce qui concerne le dernier article soumis par AK: si je ne me trompe pas, c'est un article qui avait été traduit et publié sur un site comme checkpoint.ch ou un truc du genre, et le je lui trouve exactement le même défaut qu'à un autre de leurs articles, sur la remilitarisation du japon cette fois: dramatisation, over-dramatisation et exagérations. J'ai parfois l'impression que quand on parle de ces pays, les stéréotypes à la Edith Cresson (" Ils sont des fourmis qui passent leur journée à se demander comment nous baiser. ")  sont toujours d'actualités, ce qui est un peu triste.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

D'autant qu'il n'aborde que les aspects militaires, alors que je favorise pour ma part les approches croisées et aussi multi-disciplinaires que possible!

[Taisei Yokusankai]

D'autant qu'il n'aborde que les aspects militaires, alors que je favorise pour ma part les approches croisées et aussi multi-disciplinaires que possible!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Tiens, j'ai vu que dans le nouveau numéro de l'Economist, il y avait un article sur l'Inde et sur la Chine. Je vais me le procurer demain, histoire de voir si j'ai exagéré / diminué l'importance de l'un et l'autre des pays.

(PS: tu as reçu mon mail? j'ai eu ces derniers temps des problèmes avec l'envoi d'attachements)

[Chitah]

(PS: tu as reçu mon mail? j'ai eu ces derniers temps des problèmes avec l'envoi d'attachements)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oui, il a l'air dense comme tout, je le lirai ce week end!

[Taisei Yokusankai]

Parfait. Je crois que c'est dense pour du "journalisme", mais pas pour un politologue, cela va de soi. J'ose espérer que la lecture t'en sera agréable.

[Invité jabial]

George W. Bush a besoin de l’Europe face à la puissance militaire chinoise

source AFP

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Taisei Yokusankai]

Je viens d'acheter l'Economist, et un coup d'oeil rapide au dossier (16 pages tout de même) semble au moins apporter une réponse à ce que disait Xav et AK en début de fil -à savoir l'Inde pourrait bien dépasser la Chine- : un des articles est sous-titré "If this is a race, India has already been lapped".

[Chitah]

J'avais publié un article sur la question dans l'ancien forum Liberaux.org, pour moi c'est à peu près clair que l'Inde est assez en avance au niveau du développement sur la Chine, sans même parler de a situation des droits de l'homme, qui n'a strictement rien à voir:

http://240plan.ovh.net/~liberaux/viewtopic…c6b00511258d1d7

[Taisei Yokusankai]

J'avais publié un article sur la question dans l'ancien forum Liberaux.org, pour moi c'est à peu près clair que l'Inde est assez en avance au niveau du développement sur la Chine, sans même parler de a situation des droits de l'homme, qui n'a strictement rien à voir:

http://240plan.ovh.net/~liberaux/viewtopic…c6b00511258d1d7

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Au niveau du développement économique, l'article prétend le contraire. D'ou le titre, "si c'est une course, l'Inde a déjà été dépassée".

[ULYSSE]

Le problème de la Chine c'est de savoir comment elle va gérer l'émergence de la démocratie, et ses crises sociales, notamment suite au passage d'un monde rural vers un monde urbain.

C'est de cela que dépendra sa puissance économique à long terme.

Voir cette analyse du CFR : "The Latin Americanization of China?"

Land reforms aimed at raising rural incomes and promoting urbanization could

accelerate the crisis already building in China’s cities. If urban legal and social

reforms fail to keep pace, China could face intensifying conflict between a burgeoning class of have-nots and an entitled minority, a consolidated alliance

between political leaders and business and social elites, and a host of other

social and political ills familiar to many Latin American states.

The Latin Americanization of China?

GEORGE J. GILBOY AND ERIC HEGINBOTHAM

http://www.cfr.org/pdf/gilboyhegin.pdf

GEORGE J. GILBOY is a research affiliate at the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies.

ERIC HEGINBOTHAM is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign

Relations.

Wide-ranging liberal market reforms have

produced rapid gains in China’s overall

economic growth over the past two

decades. Yet rural policy since 1978 has been rent by

opposing influences: the state recognizes the growing

plight of farmers facing market reforms, but it

refuses to accept rural migrants as full members of

urban communities. Today, however, China’s leaders

are deepening land reform programs in the countryside.

Reformers hope this will spur consolidation of

land into larger, more efficient agricultural holdings

while encouraging inefficient farmers to divest their

land, leave the countryside, and help fuel healthy

industrial growth by selling their labor in China's

burgeoning cities.

As Karl Polanyi, the author of the 1944 study, The

Great Transformation, could have predicted, this process

is not going smoothly. Although Polanyi was

describing the enclosure movement and subsequent

social, economic, and political crises in eighteenth-century

England, many common themes are now being

played out in China’s own great transformation,

including worsening inequality, rising expectations,

and increasing conflict and violence in the countryside.

Yet the current crisis in the countryside is only a

precursor to the deeper and more fraught crisis that

is growing in China’s cities. China’s economic

reforms have created what Sun Liping of Tsinghua

University calls a “cloven society.” The new rich

and powerful now live in walled, guarded villas and

modern apartment complexes, enjoying vast differences

in wealth, power, and rights from the swelling

ranks of the rural poor and urban dispossessed. The

latter are composed of millions of migrant workers

living in shantytowns, alongside the growing numbers

of urban unemployed and low-income residents

who are being forcibly removed from the city

center to make way for new real estate development.

This second, developing crisis is not only a

crisis of infrastructure and incomes—the hardware

of urban life. As millions of peasants seek a permanent

home in China’s cities, it is also a battle for

identity and entitlements—the critical software that

makes urban society workable. These “urban

rights” include legal status and accompanying

access to jobs, education, health services, insurance,

and social welfare benefits.

The outcome of this second crisis, though it will

certainly involve increasing scope and intensity of

conflict and confrontation, need not be endless discord

or regime collapse. China’s tumultuous reform

process could see the creation of new, more liberal

legal and social institutions. Transforming migrants

into urban citizens with equal rights and allowing

social groups to organize and articulate their own

interests would both improve the ability of the government

to govern effectively and minimize longterm

threats to stability and economic development.

But other outcomes are also possible. The state

could refuse to allow liberal institutional innovation

and slip into a modern form of authoritarian

corporatism in which political leaders might seek

to channel social energies toward nationalist ends—

the “revolution from above” about which Barrington

Moore warned. Or alternatively, China could

catch the Latin American disease, characterized by

a polarized urban society, intensifying urban conflict,

and failed economic promise. Indeed, despite

aggressive efforts to make the state more responsive

and adaptive, the speed with which social cleavages

and conflicts are growing today arguably makes this

last outcome easier to imagine than the others.

THE SUFFERING COUNTRYSIDE

China’s rural areas are now deep in crisis, with

sluggish income growth, peasants burdened by

excessive taxes and fees, and local governments

overstaffed, in debt, and unable to provide adequate

services for peasant families. Rampant corruption

among local officials has combined with these factors

to incite increasing levels of peasant organization,

protest, and violence. This crisis is not new, but

it is reaching a new scale and intensity. In a 2004

Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) survey

of 109 of China’s top sociologists, economists, managers,

and legal experts, 73 percent of the respondents

identified the “three rural problems” (san nong

wenti) of agriculture, peasants, and rural areas as

China’s most urgent challenge. Combined with

other issues such as corruption, the intensity of the

rural turmoil led more than half of the respondents

to see a systemic crisis as “possible” or “very possible”

within the next 5 to 10 years.

Small-scale inefficient agriculture and the relative

decline of township and village enterprises are

contributing to a widening rural-urban income gap.

Average annual rural income stands at just $317

today, and the gap between urban and rural income

has grown from 1.8:1 in the mid-1980s to 3:1 in

2003. Between 2000 and 2002, incomes fell in 42

percent of rural households in absolute terms. And

according to a July 2004 government report, the

number of farmers living under the official poverty

line of about $75 per year increased by 800,000 in

2003, the first net annual increase in absolute rural

poverty since economic reforms began in 1978. At

the same time, farmers suffer from a disproportionate

tax burden while receiving fewer services;

according to the State Council’s Development

Research Center, the urban-rural income disparity

soars to between 5:1 and 6:1 when entitlements,

services, and taxes are included in the calculation.

Unsurprisingly, organized rural protest is on the

rise. Actions range from tax evasion and blocking

roads and railways to the assault or kidnapping of

officials and even to riots that have involved hundreds

or thousands of people. Even so, the nature of

rural protest and of the state’s response to it limits the

possibility that rural conflict alone could threaten

regime stability. As Yu Jinrong of CASS notes, when

rural residents do engage in collective action and

protest, they often seek alliances with central government

officials against local officials, rather than

seeking broad-based systemic change. Yu argues that

today’s peasants are not the revolutionary “peasants

of Mao.” They are seeking legitimate political organization

to defend legitimate economic interests, and,

he warns, suppressing their aspirations and organization

carries significant political risks.

Beijing has been highly attuned to rural problems

for the past several years, and has taken steps to

address them. In particular, the central government

has had some short-term success in reducing the

peasant tax burden by cracking down on illegal local

fees and converting fees to more transparent taxes.

It also has moved to share a larger amount of central

revenue with local governments. The central government

has created more safety valves for expressions

of rural discontent, clamped down on abuses

by local officials, explained policies to peasants, paid

out monies to mollify protesters, and allowed village

elections (although it has also simultaneously

removed considerable tax and fiscal power to the

higher township level, not subject to elections).

These measures are, however, also creating a strong

sense among Chinese citizens that they have “legal

rights.” Rural residents increasingly refer to these

“rights” in their protests—a potentially significant

development for the future of Chinese politics. And,

despite the government’s success in localizing, suppressing,

or conciliating potential rural threats, the

leadership does not believe that such measures represent

a real long-term solution to the san nong wenti.

THE GREAT ENCLOSURE

Many key Chinese policymakers and social scientists

believe the solution to the rural crisis lies in a

more radical approach: a combination of land

reform, industrialization, and urbanization. Wang

Mengkui, the director general of the State Council

Development Research Center, argues, “Too many

people and too little land makes large-scale production

difficult and is therefore the greatest problem

for farmers to increase their incomes.” The consolidation

of larger farms and the movement of farmers

to the cities will go far toward solving the rural

problem, he asserts, and as an additional benefit of

urbanization, “large numbers of migrant workers

[will] supply cheap labor, thus helping to enhance

the international competitiveness of Chinese industries.”

Pan Wei, an influential government adviser

and Beijing University professor, also argues that

Beijing should encourage a rapid acceleration of

peasant migration to urban centers, proposing that

China should develop an additional 100 cities of 5

million people or more over the next 30 years, either

by building new cities or expanding existing ones.

The migration from country to city, already massive,

is accelerating. In part, this is being driven by

The Latin Americanization of China? • 257

illegal land seizures and the conversion of farmland

to industrial and recreational use. In November 2003

the Ministry of Land and Resources reported more

than 168,000 cases of illegal land seizure, twice as

many as in the entire previous year. According to the

State Statistics Bureau, China lost 6.7 million hectares

of farmland between 1996 and 2003—three and a

half times as much as the 1.9 million lost between

1986 and 1995. The trend continues to accelerate,

with some 2.53 million hectares, or 2 percent of total

farmland, lost in 2003 alone. According to the 2004

Green Book of China’s Rural Economy, for every mu of

land (approximately 0.07 hectares) that is transferred

to nonagricultural use, about 1 to 1.5 farmers lose

their land. According to official statistics, some 34 million

farmers have either lost their land entirely since

1987 or own less than 0.3 mu, and the new surge in

land transfers almost certainly indicates acceleration

of that process.

The government has met with some success in

curbing the transfer of farmland for nonagricultural

purposes during

2004, but a more

sustained, legal, and

probably larger-scale

shift in rural land

tenure patterns is in

the offing, in this

case driven by the central government’s efforts to

rationalize agriculture and raise rural incomes. The

landmark Rural Land Contracting Law (RLCL), which

took effect in March 2003, is the latest means toward

that end. Under the post-1978 household responsibility

system, land remains owned by the village,

with use rights allotted by village leaders to individual

households. The lack of secure land tenure periods

and the frequent use of “readjustments” by

village leaders (that is, reapportioning land between

households) inhibited improvements to the land,

transfer of land-use rights between farmers, and the

emergence of commercial-scale agriculture. The RLCL

mandates written contracts between farmers and villages,

and sets the period of land tenure at 30 years. It

includes clear provisions for the farmer’s right to

transfer land rights to others. And, to give potential

buyers confidence that their land-use rights will be

respected, it prohibits “readjustments” except in

extreme cases (for example, natural disasters). No

doubt, enforcement of the RLCL will be inconsistent.

But the central government appears committed to the

task and will almost certainly continue to sharpen

land-use legislation. Indeed, the agenda may be

expanded to ease rules on mortgages and to push the

household-based tenure system toward an individual-

based system, two measures that would substantially

speed the transfer of land-use rights.

If successful, land reform will accelerate China’s

internal mass migration. But the impact of both

illegal seizures and land reform will not be limited

to an increased rate of migration. The composition

of the “floating population” also will be affected.

Many of those who previously crowded onto trains

for the cities went in search of higher incomes and

were, in fact, adding one income to the family

effort since their wives, husbands, or parents continued

to work the farm in their absence. Today, an

increasing number of people are moving with families

in tow, no land or homes behind them, and no

guarantees ahead.

China’s best-known business and economics magazine,

Caijing, has called the recent spate of rural and

urban land seizures by alliances of local officials and

real estate developers a new “enclosure” (quandi)

movement, consciously echoing the process that

sped urbanization

and was so disruptive

and violent in

eighteenth-century

England. But for

many peasant families,

legal transfers

under the RLCL will have a similarly dislocating effect.

Rural reform is incomplete without also guaranteeing

the assimilation of China’s migrants as full, productive

members of urban society.

A BIGGER CRISIS TOMORROW

Speeding China’s urbanization trades one social

and political problem for another that is potentially

more severe. The problem of poor farmers working

small plots becomes that of poor migrants working

dangerous jobs with few rights and virtually no

social security safety net. The scale of China’s urban

landscape is already daunting: 166 cities of more

than 1 million people (the United States has 9) and

500 million official (that is, without counting

migrants) urban residents. Urban population

growth is already at 2.5 percent per year (versus 0.8

percent for India), and the government expects 300

million people to move to China’s cities and towns

between 2004 and 2020. Because most of China’s

migrant workers retain their shenfen, or personal

status, as farmers in their home locality, they are cut

off from access to urban services, social security,

and effective legal protection. This problem could

worsen unless the next generation of migrants who

258 • CURRENT HISTORY • September 2004

Among well-heeled urban young people, the phrase

“You’re so farmer!” (Ni zhen nongmin!) has gained

currency as a playful expression of disgust.

have lost their land—either through illegal seizures

or through the legal operation of a land-use rights

trading system—are granted rights and benefits that

will allow them to fully join urban society. The current

plight of China’s migrant workers offers a

glimpse of the obstacles that must be overcome.

Migrant workers without municipal hukou (registration)

cannot participate in regular job markets.

When they do find work, their rights under Chinese

labor law are frequently violated. Their wages are

withheld for months or years. The government estimates

that China’s 100 million migrant workers are

owed $12 billion in back pay. Mandatory safety conditions

often go unmet. According to The China

Youth Daily, in one urban area alone—Shenzhen and

the surrounding Pearl River Delta region—industrial

accidents claim more than 30,000 fingers from

workers each year. The standard payout for such

injuries is $60 per finger, but many employers refuse

to pay any compensation. According to government

officials, nearly 70 percent of migrant workers have

no form of insurance. And most live in shantytowns

outside the cities, where whole neighborhoods are

subject to clearance and destruction on little notice

and with little or no compensation.

The impact of this ambiguous, floating status

falls disproportionately on children and other weak

dependents who travel with workers. Currently, the

floating population includes an estimated 3 million

children aged 14 and under. According to a 2004

government report, pregnant migrant women and

their children suffer mortality rates between 1.4 and

3.6 times the national average. Of migrant children

between the ages of 8 and 14, some 15 percent do

not attend school. Most of those who do attend pay

high fees (often $100 or more) to enroll in improvised,

substandard private schools. Pressures associated

with payment—and shouldering an entire

family’s hopes for the future—have prompted a rash

of student suicides and even murders. Although

problems associated with migrant workers have

been apparent for some time, the rapidly accelerating

trend toward landlessness and the consequent

growth in whole families on the move make specific

problems associated with dependents new in magnitude

if not in nature. And, while services in the

countryside were also poor, China’s underclass in

the cities will perceive injustice more keenly as they

see the benefits that the new rich enjoy every day.

In theory, even urbanization advocates understand

that, as Wang Mengkui, the State Council

official, put it, “urbanization requires institutional

innovation.” To date, efforts have been limited to

protecting migrants against some of the worst

abuses. In a major government work report in

March 2004, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao declared

that the government would “basically solve the

problem of default on construction costs and wage

arrears for migrant rural workers in the construction

industry within three years.” The Ministry of

Labor and Social Security said this year that it will

oblige construction and manufacturing firms to

provide health and life insurance to millions of

migrant workers. And the central government has

encouraged municipalities to give migrants greater

and cheaper access to public schooling, though, as

with most measures, no central funds are earmarked.

In the first sign of state and party support

for a broader defense of rights for the urban poor,

reformers in the National People’s Congress are now

drafting a law that amounts to a “Bill of Welfare

Rights” for China’s internal migrants.

OBSTACLES TO REFORM

Despite the rhetoric and regulations, real

progress has been limited, and the gap between rising

consciousness of rights and the ability to act on

and realize these rights is growing. The most obvious

problem is money, or, as a group of Chinese

scholars noted in a major new book, China’s Urban

Development Report, the question of “who will pay

the bill for China’s urbanization.” The scholars’

answer is simple: urban industry. But the construction

industry, which is most relevant to the migrant

economy, has resisted paying its existing obligations

on time, much less shouldering additional costs.

With local governments profiting from the construction

industry and officials making their reputations

based on building and development—not to

mention widespread bribery and corruption—the

incentives to overlook violations remain powerful.

Nanjing University’s Pan Zequan, writing in

Strategy and Management, argues that pervasive discrimination

against migrants is not simply an

inherited evil now being attacked and reversed;

rather, it is built on consciously erected systems

and policies and is regularly “produced” and

“reproduced.” Although progress has been made in

some areas, Pan’s contention that a dynamic struggle

is under way rings true. Certainly, discrimination

against migrants works to the advantage

of—and is convenient for—those who already hold

entitlements in the cities. Material interests are

reinforced by strong local identities and prejudice

against rural “outsiders” (waidiren)—a phrase

invariably used in reference to migrants. Eastern

The Latin Americanization of China? • 259

urbanites frequently explain to Western visitors

that waidiren are of “low quality” (suzhi di) and say

they feel less in common with domestic migrants

than they do with foreigners. Among well-heeled

urban young people, the phrase “You’re so farmer!”

(Ni zhen nongmin!) has gained currency as a playful

expression of disgust.

Given hostile interests and culture, it is not surprising

that measures to lessen the hardships of

migrants often meet with obstruction. Despite Beijing

city officials’ recent order to public schools to

admit the children of migrant workers and to cut

discriminatory tuition fees imposed on them, many

schools continue to exclude migrants by claiming

to be filled to capacity when, in fact, a survey by the

Beijing Education Department showed 35,000

vacancies. Members of the floating population face

discrimination even in death. In a recent incident

in Luzhou, an explosion in a city gas pipeline killed

several people. The families of city residents were

compensated with $17,000—those of migrant

workers were given $5,000. Although they lived

and worked and died in the city, the migrants were

still classified as peasants. An official justified the

difference with the claim that “the cost of living in

the countryside is lower.”

Although China’s leaders continue to view the

rural problem as the nation’s greatest threat, a

2004 survey by the Chinese Academy of Social

Sciences singles out migrants as the great economic

loser of the post-1978 era. When asked

which of eight groups had benefited most from

China’s economic reforms, a distinguished panel

of experts was unanimous on only one item:

“migrant workers” were worse off than any other

group. The least fortunate of them join what a

leading government researcher, Zhang Xiaoshan,

has described as a new class, the “three havenots”:

people with no land, no jobs, and no access

to national income insurance.

THE FUTURE: LIBERAL, FASCIST, OR DICKENSIAN?

Broadly speaking, three possible 15-year outcomes

to the dual rural-urban crises are possible:

liberal, authoritarian corporatist (or fascist), and

botched. None of these outcomes is preordained.

We would argue, nevertheless, that China is now

groping its way at least tentatively toward the first,

though the pace of social change and the difficulty

of overcoming entrenched interests may ultimately

make the third most likely.

Progress toward a liberal outcome would see the

village election system strengthened and expanded at

least to the township level. Land reform would proceed

but with land reforms matched by commensurate

and simultaneous urban reforms that protect new

arrivals in cities and second-generation migrants, and

that permit employment beyond construction and

road sweeping. In urban areas, the hukou system

(already being revised) would be eliminated and public

services made equally available to all people living

and working in a given region. An awareness of legal

rights would develop, along with the means to actualize

them. Ultimately, individuals, regardless of their

status, would be allowed to organize in groups free

from direct state control to defend their interests.

Movement can be seen in most of these areas.

Village-level democracy—imperfect as it is—is

bringing greater accountability to the countryside.

Nationally, progress in building legal institutions

and, especially, fostering a “rights and accountability”

culture has been made on a broader front.

Although the road ahead is still much longer than

that already traveled, the state seems prepared to

countenance a judicial system that will be used to

mediate interests as part of the local political process,

not simply to administer justice. Legal awareness

has been aided by the central government’s

emphasis on “rule of law” in its own battles to

control provincial and municipal governments.

And peasants are responding. The State Council

Development Research Center reports that an

increasing proportion of official petition and

protest letters cite legal rights and protections as

the basis for the complaints.

In the cities, the state has tolerated, if not

encouraged, the rise of a few new independent

social organizations. Writing in The China Journal

in January 2003, Benjamin Read analyzed the

development of urban housing associations focused

on gaining control of management and improving

service quality in upscale real estate developments.

These groups capitalize on the government’s recent

promotion of notions of certain “rights” to property

and consumer protection. They have fended off

attempts at government co-optation and are promoting

a sense of common identity among their

members in addition to pursuing claims against

negligent or corrupt real estate developers. While

Read cautions that it remains to be seen whether

these groups can sustain their current autonomy,

they offer tantalizing evidence of the kind of ad

hoc, innovative interest-intermediation groups that

could become the basis for more permanent social

and political institutions. Yet, by their very nature,

these new associations highlight the disparities in

260 • CURRENT HISTORY • September 2004

income and social rights between China’s haves and

have-nots—such open organization and representation

are not tolerated in migrant shantytowns.

Nor have they successfully emerged among poor

city residents who are forced to move from older

downtown buildings demolished to make way for

new developments. Despite the caveats, however,

all this adds up to substantial progress toward a

more liberal future.

Unfortunately, other social and political possibilities

are also readily apparent. Observers such as

Michael Leeden and Jasper Becker have argued that

China, far from becoming more liberal, has moved

in the opposite direction, toward fascism. Benchmarks

for movement in this direction would

include the consolidation of society into state-dominated

and controlled hierarchical organizations;

administrative, rather than judicial, mechanisms for

social conflict resolution; the strategic use of anticapitalist

and anti-foreign rhetoric; and the heavy

involvement of the military in propaganda and

social work.

In fact, this largely describes elements of China

today. Yet all of these features are becoming less true

of the Chinese state, rather than more. Private

industry is growing relatively faster than state

industry. New self-organized groups are cropping

up faster than the state can effectively co-opt or

suppress them. The media are more robust, independent,

and commercial, with ever-shrinking

restrictions on what can be reported. The legal system

is growing stronger. And the military is distancing

itself from its socioeconomic functions as it

has been reduced in size and professionalized. In

most key dimensions, China is currently headed

away from authoritarian corporatism, not toward it.

There is, however, a third possible trajectory: a

“Latin Americanization” of China in which the state

could fail to develop institutions capable of adequately

addressing China’s new social crisis. The

speed of social change and the explosive growth of

social conflict may outstrip the state’s ability to

respond. Political leaders could settle into a collusive

relationship with business and social elites. A

semipermanent have-not class might engage in a

constant and economically costly low-level war

with the entitled minority. For many Chinese scholars

and government officials, Latin American-style

social and political problems are now an explicit

frame of reference for what China might face if it

fails to reverse social trends in the near future.

Despite movement toward a more adaptive, liberal

future, the downward spiral toward failure may

in fact be just as likely in the mid-term. Some indicators

already point toward this outcome. The 2004

report of the Politics and Law Commission of the

Communist Party found that the number of incidents

of “social unrest” or “mass incidents” rose

14.4 percent in 2003, to 58,000 nationwide. The

number of people involved rose 6.6 percent, to 3

million. In the cities, the “floating population”

accounted for “up to 80 percent of all crime.” Evidence

from numerous urban areas suggests that

avoiding the Latin Americanization of Chinese society

and a descent into low-level class warfare will

require more than partial measures designed to mitigate

the worst suffering of migrants—it will require

making them full citizens.

THE NEED FOR SPEED

China’s leaders are intently focused on the

nation’s rural crisis and the growing gap between

urban and rural quality of life. Their proposed solution

to these problems—land reforms aimed at promoting

mass migration and rapid urbanization—is

likely to speed the arrival of a second crisis, pitting

migrant families against entrenched urban interests

in a struggle for rights and entitlements. Those

urban interests are themselves powerful forces,

including alliances of municipal officials, real estate

developers, and construction industries, alongside

a new wealthy urban class and existing ranks of

urban poor and unemployed. Yet many migrant

farmers, some accustomed to voting for their village

leaders, and now promised new protections by the

government, bring a new “rights consciousness”

with them when they move to the cities. Their

expectations of fair treatment and access to benefits

such as insurance and health care can only be

ignored at the government’s peril.

While it is struggling with difficult but familiar

rural conflict, China’s leadership is less well

endowed to deal with the coming urban social

challenge. The Chinese system does have remarkable

strengths, not least the practice of conducting

pragmatic economic and political experiments

in individual locations and then embracing successful

methods nationwide. It is entirely possible

that liberalizing interim solutions could

become more permanent institutions, as they did

in the England that Polanyi described. But with

government plans calling for the market-based

“enclosure” of China’s rural areas, and several

hundred million migrants likely to move to the

cities over the next two decades, Beijing is in a

race against time.

http://www.cfr.org/pdf/gilboyhegin.pdf

The Latin Americanization of China? • 261

[Taisei Yokusankai]

Le problème de la Chine c'est de savoir comment elle va gérer l'émergence de la démocratie, et ses crises sociales, notamment suite au passage d'un monde rural vers un monde urbain.

C'est de cela que dépendra sa puissance économique à long terme.

Plus exactement, le problème de la Chine est de retarder au maximum l'émergence de cette démocratie. Comme le souligne l'Economist, on peut arriver dans les premières places mondiales via une dictature, mais pour s'y maintenir, il faut passer à la démocratie. Vu que la Chine ne fait pas encore partie de ce top, il y a encore -pas mal- de marge avant que les problèmes dont tu parles se présentent, pour autant que la poigne autoritaire se maintienne.

[Invité beaublaireau]

La prospérité économique réclamme un appaisement politique.

Les autorités Chinoises se rendront compte à temps de la nécessité d'ouvrir le régime, ils l'ouvriront et progressivement, la Chine deviendra une démocratie (pas forcément telle qu'on l'entend ici en Europe) qui s'adaptera aux spécificités de la culture Chinoise.

D'ici à une trentaine d'années je pense que ca sera le cas. Cette ouverture pourrait aussi être le moteur du règlement de certains conflits territoriaux comme celui avec l'île de Taiwan.

Par ailleurs, il y a démocratie et démocratie, l'Etat chinois peut très bien (comme il le fait pour sa politique de l'enfant unique) accorder des droits à certaines catégories de citoyens…

[Djerzinsky]

Les autorités Chinoises se rendront compte à temps de la nécessité d'ouvrir le régime, ils l'ouvriront et progressivement, la Chine deviendra une démocratie (pas forcément telle qu'on l'entend ici en Europe) qui s'adaptera aux spécificités de la culture Chinoise

je pense aussi que si la Chine doit continuer a se developper a ce rythme, l'ouverture est inevitable.

sinon l'Inde les depassera, en termes de development de logiciel, l'inde est deja devant, la production totale n'est pas encore la, mais je ne me fais pas de soucis pour les Indiens, a moins que la Chine suive une reforme politique, il est inevitable que l'Inde devienne une puissance economique plus importante a terme.

[Taisei Yokusankai]

Vous prenez vos désirs pour des réalités.

[Djerzinsky]

Vous prenez vos désirs pour des réalités.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

pour quelle raisons.

la liberte d'information et d'entreprise est une compsante essentielle du developemment technologique et economique.

c'est pourquoi l'ordinateur personnel fut invente dans une banlieues americaine et non Sovietique a la fin des 70. meme si les soviets etait capable de produire plus et mieux, leur modele ne pouvait gagner a terme.

[Taisei Yokusankai]

pour quelle raisons.

la liberte d'information et d'entreprise est une compsante essentielle du developemment technologique et economique.

c'est pourquoi l'ordinateur personnel fut invente dans une banlieues americaine et non Sovietique a la fin des 70. meme si les soviets etait capable de produire plus et mieux, leur modele ne pouvait gagner a terme.

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La Corée du Sud n'est devenue une démocratie qu'après avoir acquis le statut de pays développé -et en même temps celui d'une grande force économique. Il y a donc encore de la marge pour les Chinois. D'autant plus que la comparaisonb avec l'URSS est hors de propos, la Chine actuelle n'a rien avoir avec le régime soviétique des années 70, en ce qui concerne la liberté d'entreprendre notamment. La démocratie ne deveint un facteur déterminant que vers la fin du processus de développement, voir une fois le pays développé. A ce stade en effet, pour continuer a progresser, il faut une démocratisation. Comme toujours depuis 20 ans, les Chinois lacheront des trucs, mais uniquement le minimum nécessaire pour continuer à avancer.

En ce qui concerne les comparaisons entre Chine et Inde, non seulement, cela fait plus de dix ans que la Chine a dépassé l'Inde, mais en plus la Rep Pop continue a progresser à un rythme plus rapide que l'Inde, dans quasi tous les domaines.

Etre convaincu que les Indiens vont dépasser les Chinois, c'est du wisful thinking. Il n'est pas dit que ça n'arrivera pas, mais au stade actuel, les indications concretes d'un tel changement n'existent tout simplement pas.

[Djerzinsky]

La Corée du Sud n'est devenue une démocratie qu'après avoir acquis le statut de pays développé -et en même temps celui d'une grande force économique. Il y a donc encore de la marge pour les Chinois.

oui, je sais, je n'ai jamais pretendu le contraire

D'autant plus que la comparaisonb avec l'URSS est hors de propos, la Chine actuelle n'a rien avoir avec le régime soviétique des années 70, en ce qui concerne la liberté d'entreprendre notamment.

la comparaison n'etait pas avec l'Urss des annees 70, mais avec 2 modeles, l'un laissant libre cour a la creation d'entreprise, au developpement technologique qui a mon avis ne peut exister que dans une société liberal sur le plan politique, et l'autre tel que la chine ou l'urss, ou la coree du nord, ou cuba, ou burma… ou la liberte sur le plan politique est restreinte, ou l'on peu se faire emprisonner pour afficher ses opinions, oui meme en Chine certains entrepreneurs qui essayent de se lancer dans la politique vont faire un tour en prison.

tu remarqueras que toutes les inventions du 19eme et debut du 20eme se sont faites dans des pays liberaux sur le plan politique. Edison, Curie, Niepce…. n'emergeaient pas de je ne sais quelle societe feodale.

La démocratie ne deveint un facteur déterminant que vers la fin du processus de développement, voir une fois le pays développé. A ce stade en effet, pour continuer a progresser, il faut une démocratisation. Comme toujours depuis 20 ans, les Chinois lacheront des trucs, mais uniquement le minimum nécessaire pour continuer à avancer.

c'est bien ce que je dis, mais a termes, s'il veulent garder le dessus, faudra lacher du leste

En ce qui concerne les comparaisons entre Chine et Inde, non seulement, cela fait plus de dix ans que la Chine a dépassé l'Inde, mais en plus la Rep Pop continue a progresser à un rythme plus rapide que l'Inde, dans quasi tous les domaines.

c'est un peu logique, les reformes de Deng Xiaoping date de 1978, les reformes indienne date de 1991… ca prend du temp de rattraper 13 annees.

Etre convaincu que les Indiens vont dépasser les Chinois, c'est du wishful thinking. Il n'est pas dit que ça n'arrivera pas, mais au stade actuel, les indications concretes d'un tel changement n'existent tout simplement pas.

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rien n'est encore joue… la chine n'est qu'au debut de son developpement, et beaucoup de chose peuvent arriver.

il y a 100 ans, le bresil et l'argentine faisaient parti des pays les plus riches du monde avec des taux de croissance incroyable… l'instabilite politique les a conduit ou il sont.

[Xav]

Je pense que les débats du style "qui sera meilleur que qui?" ou "qui sera le champion?" sont stériles.

Je me souviens dans les années 80 les bouquins annonçant la japonisation du monde… on débattait sur la puissance japonaise face aux Etats-Unis… peur de l'invasion nippone, japan bashing à toutes les sauces… 20 ans après on en est loin de l'image du Japon conquérant et surpassant les Etats-Unis…

Les émissions, les livres, les reportages, les préjugés et la peur sur le Japon sont remplacés par ceux sur la Chine.

Nouvelle mode: l'Inde. L'Express, le Point, Arte et Guy Sorman vantent l'Inde… Inde le nouveau géant? Le prochain Bill Gates sera-t-il indien? Le curry envahit nos assiettes?

On tourne en rond…

[Etienne]

Le curry envahit nos assiettes?

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A en juger, vers chez moi, c'est plutot riz cantonnais, sauce soja, nems, boule coco, et poulet au gingenbre. Ou alors, kebab.

Alors, c'est la Chine et la Gréce, les prochaines puissances mondiales. J'ai bon?

[Taisei Yokusankai]

Je suis globalement d'accord avec toi.

la comparaison n'etait pas avec l'Urss des annees 70, mais avec 2 modeles, l'un laissant libre cour a la creation d'entreprise, au developpement technologique qui a mon avis ne peut exister que dans une société liberal sur le plan politique, et l'autre tel que la chine ou l'urss, ou la coree du nord, ou cuba, ou burma… ou la liberte sur le plan politique est restreinte, ou l'on peu se faire emprisonner pour afficher ses opinions, oui meme en Chine certains entrepreneurs qui essayent de se lancer dans la politique vont faire un tour en prison.

Je crois que c'est plus subtil que deux modèles. En matière de liberté d'entreprendre, les différences sont énormes entre la Chine d'une part et URSS, CdN ou Cuba d'autre part. Pour ce qui des entrepreneurs se lançant dans la politique: c'est un pays a parti unique, donc tout qui fait de la politique se retrouve en tôle, pas spécialement les entrepreneurs, d'autant plus qu'il y a deux ou trois le parti s'est ouvert aux dits entrepreneurs (ce qui a fait dire a certaines de mes connaissances "tu vois que c'est un pays néolibéral capitaliste qui ne pense plus aux ouvriers et qui acceuillent en son sein les exploiteurs du peuple?").

[ULYSSE]

La comparaison avec le Japon n'est pas pertinente.

Le miracle japonais souffrait d'un réel handicap pour maintenir le Japon en super-puissance : l'étroitesse démographique.

Une fois que tous les cadres se sont tués à la tâche il ne reste plus de nouveaux viviers pour développer et entretenir la puissance.

La donnée objective de la puissance chinoise ou indienne reste démographique : plus d'un milliard d'habitants chacun.

C'est une force incontournable à long terme, qui attire tous les investisseurs, qui offre une main d'oeuvre inépuisable, et un vivier large pour développer des élites aussi, dans tous les domaines, y compris à très haute valeur ajoutée (nouveaux brevets de logiciels comme l'EVD chinois, informatique indienne parmi la plus performante au monde qui investit tous les secteurs stratégiques aux USA…)

La démographie ne s'écroûle pas à la vitesse d'un crack boursier, donc Chine et Inde resteront incontournables sans passer par des effets de mode comme le Japon.

C'est pour la même raison que la puissance française est morte, et ce n'est pas en mettant des nationalistes au pouvoir que cela changera. Sous Louis XIV et Napoléon nous étions une des premières puissances démographiques au monde, et la première en Europe. Notre puissance est née en partie de cela et n'a pu subsister longtemps au-delà de ça.

Le problème de la Chine n'est pas de s'avoir si elle va s'ouvrir, mais quelles seront les répercussions sociales de son ouverture. On ne s'ouvre pas après des années de dictature sans conséquences sur les équilibres internes. Il y a des risques de séparatisme, d'émeutes sociales, d'instabilités, de populisme, d'explosion des criminalités, de régressions économiques etc.

L'autre problème sera de savoir comment ils feront face à leurs immenses besoins en matières premières, énergétiques, eau potable, cuivre, acier etc.

Et quels moyens ils seront prêts à employer le cas échéant pour assurer leur approvisionnement en cas de pénurie mondiale.

[Chitah]

Le problème de la Chine n'est pas de s'avoir si elle va s'ouvrir, mais quelles seront les répercussions sociales de son ouverture. On ne s'ouvre pas après des années de dictature sans conséquences sur les équilibres internes. Il y a des risques de séparatisme, d'émeutes sociales, d'instabilités, de populisme, d'explosion des criminalités, de régressions économiques etc.

LE 10 ème plan prévoit le développement du centre et de l"ouest, après le développement des provinces cotières de l'est.

En ce qui concerne les problèmes énergétiques de la Chine, ils sont bien sûr à considérer:

- au Sud en mer de Chine méridionale, les Etats ne sont pas en mesure de les empêcher de prendre possession (ds'une maniere ou d'une autre) des champs petrolifères

- à l'Est, devenir copains avec les Russes, ou même les Iraniens (moyennant une réconciliation avec l'Inde, le Pakistan et l'Afghanistan pour laisser passer les oléo-gazoducs) ne semble plus trop un problème pour les autorités chinoises

- au centre, le barrage des trois Gorges, ainsi que la mise en place d'un pipeline d'hydrocarbures interne à la Chine (entre Ouest et Est) devrait régler les problèmes liés au rapide développement de Shangaï.

Chitah, qui rattrape son retard en Histoire-Géo.

L'autre problème sera de savoir comment ils feront face à leurs immenses besoins en matières premières, énergétiques, eau potable, cuivre, acier etc.

Et quels moyens ils seront prêts à employer le cas échéant pour assurer leur approvisionnement en cas de pénurie mondiale.

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C'est sûr qu'il ne vaut mieux pas qu'ils agissent comme les occidentaux l'ont toujours fait, parce que sinon ça risque de mal se passer dans la région.

[Djerzinsky]

L'autre problème sera de savoir comment ils feront face à leurs immenses besoins en matières premières, énergétiques, eau potable, cuivre, acier etc.

Et quels moyens ils seront prêts à employer le cas échéant pour assurer leur approvisionnement en cas de pénurie mondiale.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

ils signent deja de gros contrat avec les pays sud americains, et develope aussi des usines de recyclage. reste plus qu'a leur envoyer nos dechet, et leurs besoins seront approvisiones, a condition qu'on nous laisse faire.

un gros probleme pour la chine sera la gestion de la pollution, je crois qu'a present celle ci polluent ses rivieres 3 fois plus que les US.

[Taisei Yokusankai]

- à l'Est, devenir copains avec les Iraniens (moyennant une réconciliation avec l'Inde, le Pakistan et l'Afghanistan pour laisser passer les oléo-gazoducs) ne semble plus trop un problème pour les autorités chinoises

Pas besoin d'oléoducs: il suffit de faire comme le Japon, c'est à dire faire venir le tout par la mer.

Je rappelle aux retardataires que le Japon a signé un gros contrat avec l'Iran courant 2003, à la grande colère des USA.