10 Oct 2005
Guangdong corruption report, activist beating highlight social pressures
State media reported on 10 October that official corruption and mismanagement had cost Guangdong province $4bn during the past five years. On the same day, reports emerged that a leading activist in the province had been severely beaten in Taishi, the village where he was involved in a high-profile campaign to remove an official who was accused of corruption.
The unrelated developments underline well-established trends that threaten social stability. Official corruption has been endemic for years, but increasing levels of rights-awareness and a vast pool of disadvantaged peasants and migrant workers mean that opposition to corruption is now leading to frequent, often large and violent incidents of unrest. Such incidents are common around the country and will continue for the foreseeable future despite Chinese Communist Party (CCP) efforts to tackle the problem. It is no surprise that the official Guangdong corruption report revealed extensive losses through graft. This is a feature of local government around the country that has been well known throughout the reform era, and is a key concern of CCP leaders as they struggle to re-establish a degree of control over lower levels of the system, where corruption is a leading cause of social unrest as well as financial loss.
Corruption and unrest
One means of re-asserting control is by using limited forms of transparency and participation at the local government level to expose local officials to greater accountability. The CCP has been experimenting with political reforms to achieve this in various ‘test’ cases around the country, and will probably extend these in the coming months and years. However, sometimes labelled as ‘democratisation’, such ‘intra-party democracy’ reforms are aimed at strengthening the CCP's rule, and are not designed to open the system to widespread popular participation.
Since late July, developments in Taishi village (in the Panyu district of Guangzhou, in Guangdong) have been closely followed by Chinese political observers as another, more spontaneous ‘test case’ for political freedom. Villagers in Taishi launched a protracted campaign to remove the director of the village committee (an elected official), according to procedures stipulated in the Village Organisation Law. The campaign has featured several tense stand-offs between villagers and local security officials, some scuffles and use of force, the involvement of legal experts supporting the villagers, and considerable media attention (until a clampdown on coverage). The basis of the villagers’ complaints against the director is unclear, but has become largely irrelevant as the more significant issue is the official response.
The high profile of the case means that higher levels of authority have been involved. Initially, officials seem to have allowed the campaign to continue according to procedures. However, fitting the pattern of the thousands of similar – though less publicised – cases around the country in recent years, those identified as leading the protests or providing legal support have been harassed or detained. The beating of the prominent figure in the Taishi protests – local officials probably gave, at the very least, their tacit consent for the attack – is simply the most extreme and highly-publicised aspect of this. While central leaders remain genuinely keen to improve governance and reduce discontent, including through tentative political reforms, effective suppression of dissent will remain the priority for officials as unrest continues to rise.
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