2010-11-11
The main cover story in last week’s issue of Newsweek was China’s Selfishness in Posing as a Developing Country. The article by Rana Foroohar (business correspondent) and Isaac Stone Fish (Beijing) ran to four pages.
Although a prosperous middle class has grown in China’s coastal regions in recent years, it still accounts for only a small proportion of the total population.
More than half of China’s wealth remains in the hands of the state.
Resentment of inequality has recently been growing particularly strong in Chinese society.
An incident has recently caused a considerable stir on the Chinese Internet.
Not long ago, the son of a local police official drove a car—it was a luxury car—while drunk and struck two pedestrians.
When a police officer approached him after the accident, the man reportedly declared:
“I am Li Gang’s son. Arrest me if you dare.”
Incidents like this stir people’s anger.
For the Chinese government, which wants to suppress social unrest, addressing inequality has now become its most important task.
It is rumored that the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, to be announced in March 2011, will allocate substantial funding to education, healthcare, pensions, and other areas.
If the people begin to experience prosperity for themselves, and the risk of poverty giving rise to social unrest becomes smaller than it is now, the Chinese government may become somewhat more inclined to assume an international role commensurate with its economic power.
The Limits of “Two Faces” Diplomacy
Furthermore, as Sarah Raine, a research fellow specializing in China–Africa relations at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, points out, China is building a powerful navy but insists that it is strictly “for self-defense” and asks that it not be regarded as a military threat.
In short, China wants a say in discussions of every major foreign-policy issue, but refuses to abide by the rules decided in those forums.
As long as it maintains this contradictory attitude, China cannot fully exercise its influence internationally.
It should not be allowed to go on playing the “poor country” forever.