Gonzaga Debate Institute 2010 Bravo Lab China da

Rich/ Poor Gap = Instability

The rising gap in between the rich and poor creates social instability, culminating in social meltdown within the next few monthes.

Zweig 5 (David, Professor at Hong Kong University, “Wealth Gap Threatens Stability in China” Center on China’s Transnational Relations, August 23 2005, http://blog.ust.hk/cctr/2009/03/16/wealth-gap-threatens-stability-in-china/) MKB

China risks social meltdown within five years because of the stresses provoked by its economic boom, government officials were warned yesterday. The country was now in a “yellow-light” zone, the second most serious indicator of “social instability”, according to an official report focusing on the growing gap between rich and poor. “We are going to hit the red-light scenario after 2010 if there are no effective solutions in the next few years,” said the report, commissioned by the labour and social security ministry. As if to bear out its warnings, police admitted that rioting had broken out in a town in the eastern province of Zhejiang, the latest in a wave of violent protests in the region. Buildings and police cars were set alight in clashes led by parents who accused a battery factory of giving their children lead poisoning. Such unrest is now common in many Chinese towns, often triggered by protests against the mixture of corruption and environmental degradation that the dash for development has brought. The increased publicity given to them - the labour ministry’s findings were reported in the state-owned China Daily - is a sign of growing government anxiety. The national leadership, under President Hu Jintao, which came to power two years ago made the plight of the poor its rallying cry and announced the abolition of rural taxes. But it has proved unable to prevent the exploitation of China’s manufacturing boom by local officials eager to bolster both their standing and their bank balances. Han Dong-fang, a Chinese labour rights activist in Hong Kong, said Beijing’s prophecies of doom appeared to be exacerbating local corruption. “For the moment, the officials have positions and economic power,” he said. “They feel they have to hurry up, because otherwise they will lose their last chance to grab what they can.” Ever since market-oriented economic reforms were launched more than 25 years ago, the old Maoist notions of equality have disappeared. Ironically, standard measures of wealth disparity now rank “communist” China as far more unequal than its old adversary, capitalist Taiwan. The National Bureau of Statistics says that rural incomes last year averaged ￡200 a head, less than a third of average urban incomes. And the wealth gap appears to be widening. Figures released yesterday showed that while China’s gross domestic product grew by more than nine per cent last year, rural incomes rose by only four to five per cent. In the latest local protest, up to 70 people in Mei-shan, Zhejiang, were reported injured after police waded into protesters with batons and tear gas. When police later returned to arrest ringleaders, some locals went on a rampage, setting light to the battery factory, breaking into government offices and burning police cars. The public security ministry recently admitted that there were 74,000 protests of this sort last year, up from 30,000 the year before. Ominously, Chinese authorities announced last week the setting up of special riot squad units to counter local protests, which officials bracketed with terrorism as an enemy of stability.

Rich/ Poor Gap = Instability

The rising gap in between the rich and poor creates social instability, risking regime collapse

Sainsbury 10

(Michael, Chinese specialist, “Stability, byword of the Tiananmen Tyrants, on even shakier ground in China”, The Australian, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/stability-byword-of-the-tiananmen-tyrants-on-even-shakier-ground-in-china/story-e6frg6so-1225875408279) MKB
Twenty-one years ago today, tensions reached breaking point and the Chinese government called in troops and killed hundreds of people in the name of stability. Today a range of social and economic ills, headed by corruption, a widening income gap and forced home removals, are once more testing the world's most populous country. Zhou, now an independent commentator and constitutional academic, tells Inquirer the prospect of stability in China is becoming more uncertain, with "economic reform only half-way and political reform stuck". The situation is grabbing headlines even in the tightly controlled state media. Government news agency Xinhua released a report last month that said income disparity was weakening economic security and development potential, endangering social stability. According to a World Bank report, while 5 per cent of Americans hold 60 per cent of US assets, in China, 1 per cent of the population holds 41.4 per cent of the assets. China's wealth polarisation is the most severe in the world. As the income gap between the rich, the struggling middle class and the poor continues to widen and avenues for redress shrink, protest by individuals and groups have become widespread and multifaceted in their causes. In the past three months there has been a spate of attacks, often with knives on school children, that has left 21 people dead and more than 100 injured. In November, Tang Fuzhen, a 47-year-old businesswoman, burned herself to death in Sichuan while holding a red national flag in a last, vain attempt to halt the demolition of her house. In March, in the southern city of Kunming, a dispute between unlicensed street vendors and law enforcement officers escalated into a full-blown rampage by angry citizens. This week, 46-year-old Zhu Jun, head of security at the Lingling district post office in Yongzhou, broke into a court office in Hunan and shot six people, murdering three judges before killing himself. Electronics maker Foxconn, which makes Apple's iPhone near Shenzhen, has been hit with a spate of 10 worker suicides. Nearby, at a Honda plant in Foshan, workers have staged one of the biggest public strikes in decades, seeking better wages. At the heart of Beijing's battle to keep its populace under control is the shadowy but powerful Stability Preservation Office, which is controlled directly by the country's ruling nine-man Politburo Standing Committee. China's acknowledged expert on social stability, senior thinktank researcher Yu Jianrong from the China Academy of Social Sciences, believes individual and group outrage are being spurred by unfair and unclear rules. "Uncertainty about the rules tends to cause people a kind of terror, a fear of the future, which in some people manifests as weakness and mediocrity, while in others it may turn into hatred, and the hatred by generated fear is sporadic," he told China's progressive Southern Weekend newspaper. David Kelly, a professor at the China Research Centre at the University of Technology, Sydney, tells Inquirer: "Economic growth has left some people and groups completely disenfranchised. "They are unable to represent their own interests. Most Chinese believe that rich people can get away with anything." Tiananmen veteran Zhou says: "The fundamental problem with the political system of China is the four cardinal principles, (namely, adhere to the socialist road; adhere to the people's democratic dictatorship; adhere to the leadership of the Communist Party of China; adhere to Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong thought) which are written in the constitution, is completely against rule of law. "It doesn't insure the basic rights of people, and makes the government beyond any containment and supervision. "Running a country by suppression and an iron wrist can't last long. "The stability maintenance measures, with rising investment in it, can only work as plaster: it covers the surface, but not heal the root." The Stability Preservation Office was founded in the late 1990s, when workers were laid off during a period of privatisation. Its local offices extend to provincial, city, county and street level (the lowest government level) as well as into important institutes and enterprises. So-called mass events or public disturbances provide routine work for the office. It also works to prevent petitioners from lodging their complaints in Beijing, an ancient Chinese practice. Says Du Guang, a professor at major think-tank The Central Party School:"It's a political system protecting the interests of powerful interest groups . . . officials protect officials, power protects power." Guang says: "So when deprived, exploited, ordinary people stand up to protest, the institute with power naturally stands together with the exploiters to crack down on the public." Stability is also costing the country a small fortune. The report says public security cost 514 billion yuan ($90bn) in 2009, an 8.9 per cent increase over 2008.