« France: 2008 in Review | Blog Home Page | Russia: 2008 in Review »
December 28, 2008China: 2008 in Review
In 2008, the world saw both impressive demonstrations of China’s rising power and capabilities as well as increasingly bolder and complex challenges to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) control over the nation.
In May, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit the Sichuan Province that left over 87,000 people dead or missing. The central government went all out in its disaster response with Premier Wen Jiabao flying to the affected area to personally oversee relief efforts. Foreign observers praised the massive scale of the logistical operation and its overall effectiveness as well as the government’s openness in disseminating information and accepting foreign assistance.
The fact that one of the largest-scale Olympic games could still be held just three months after the earthquake struck further underlined the resilience and governance capabilities of the CCP. On August 8, the Beijing Olympics opened with a display of fireworks and choreographed performances whose mammoth scale took the breath of virtually the entire global audience. Combined with the eye-catching architectural designs of Olympic venues, the surprisingly successful effort to reduce air pollution in one of the most polluted cities in the world, and beating out the United States to capture the most gold medals while coming in a close second in the overall medal count, Chinese could hold their heads high and show the world that they had, indeed, arrived, and they were a force to be respected and reckoned with.
The period leading up to the Olympics were marred, however, by a Tibetan uprising that took place in March and attracted much attention from the foreign media. It was the largest display of anger and protest in 20 years against the government’s treatment of Tibetans that resulted in deadly riots. The government cracked down hard and closed off affected areas from foreign journalists. The tough response only served to inflame the passions of overseas Tibetans and other anti-CCP activists who managed to seriously disrupt what was supposed to be a triumphal round-the-world Olympic torch relay. The “attacks” on the sacred flame and perceived bias of Western media angered both Chinese citizens and overseas Chinese communities who interpreted these protests as an expression of foreigners’ desire to keep China from rising.
Not long after the heavily guarded Olympics drew to a successful close without serious incident, reports began to surface around the world that various dairy products imported from China were tainted with melamine, a chemical additive that can boost protein readings. Since July there had been reports that hospitals in China were admitting hundreds of infants who suffered serious kidney damage after being fed tainted milk powder. The melamine scandal exploded into global proportions in September once foreign governments started banning dairy products from China and firms such as Cadbury, Nestle, and Unilever initiated large-scale recalls. The scandal served to remind the world that in spite of China’s rapid modernization, it still suffered from deficits typical of developing countries such as an absence of comprehensive legal and regulatory mechanisms to ensure product safety. The scandal also highlighted, perhaps with cause for worry, just how deeply Chinese products penetrated into the daily lives of people around the world.
The industrial world started to reel from the effects of the U.S. financial crisis starting in late September. At first it was thought that the Chinese economy would be able to emerge largely unscathed and even eventually replace the U.S. as a top economic power, but statistics later on showed that exports, foreign direct investment, and industrial production had dropped drastically in November. Unemployment seemed to be rising and various economists projected that GDP growth in 2009 is likely to be lower than 8%, the level at which Chinese economists believe is necessary to support the current level of employment for its millions of current and new workers.
The financial crisis coincided with the government’s celebration of the 30th anniversary of its reform and opening policy which laid the foundation for China’s unprecedented double-digit economic growth in the following decades. Originally intended to remind the populace of the success of the CCP’s efforts in lifting millions out of poverty and transforming China into a major world power, it is now overshadowed by uncertainty over whether the crisis will threaten to erode the Chinese people’s hard-won economic achievements.
In November, the CCP made significant advances in its lifelong quest to annex Taiwan by sending an envoy to the island to sign a series of agreements with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to usher in direct air, shipping, and postal links between the two sides. News of the envoy’s visit was met, however, with thousands of protesters who feared the loss of Taiwan’s sovereignty, democratic system, and civil liberties.
In December, a group of over 300 Chinese citizens signed and publicly released Charter 08 which condemned the government’s authoritarian model of governance and development and called for the establishment of a democratic system of government and the protection of human rights. Amongst the signers were well-known intellectuals and dissidents including Liu Xiaobo, who was detained not long after the document’s release. The charter represents one of the most concerted and prominent attempts since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests by citizens in China to publicly voice dissatisfaction with the CCP government.
As 2008 draws to a close, the following passage from Charter 08 warns that the CCP’s model of authoritarian development is unsustainable and must either change drastically in 2009 or suffer the consequences:
“As the ruling elite continues with impunity to crush and to strip away the rights of citizens to freedom, to property, and to the pursuit of happiness, we see the powerless in our society—the vulnerable groups, the people who have been suppressed and monitored, who have suffered cruelty and even torture, and who have had no adequate avenues for their protests, no courts to hear their pleas—becoming more militant and raising the possibility of a violent conflict of disastrous proportions. The decline of the current system has reached the point where change is no longer optional. … Our political system continues to produce human rights disasters and social crises, thereby not only constricting China's own development but also limiting the progress of all of human civilization. This must change, truly it must. The democratization of Chinese politics can be put off no longer.”
Share