Facts & Figures

China's residents conducted roughly 74,000 mass protests in 2004.

 

Meanwhile, the threat of social unrest has only grown larger as the global economic downturn inflames tensions beneath the surface. As exports slowed, manufacturers shut down their doors, leaving millions of workers to fend for themselves.

By the end of the 20th century it became clear inside and outside of China that gains from a rapid pace of development and global integration came with a cost. As the World Bank noted in 2005, China’s development is “plagued by imbalances.” As the economy expanded, so did the gap of human development between rural and urban populations and the gap between rich and poor.

In 2008, the World Trade Organization warned China that it must address its income disparities and economic imbalances to maintain stability. Realizing the growing imbalances, Chinese officials looked for political solutions.

 

Inside the Modern Dragon

China: A 21st Century Engine of Change
  

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China Hums a New Tune

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Read More About China's Ethnic Minority Groups

“China's Quest for a Harmonious Society”
By Patricia Mohr©

Strong but Tenuous Growth

Since Deng Xiaoping opened China to the global economy nearly three decades ago, the country has pursued rapid economic growth generated by exports of low-cost goods. The pursuit has produced many positive results: Annual value of exports grew from $39.4 billion in 1987 to $969 billion in 2006; the economy grew at an average annual rate of 9.5 percent from 1997 to 2007; poverty rates plunged; and quality of life improved—China’s Human Development Index ratio rose from 0.53 in 1975 to 0.77 in 2005.

Thanks to its near double-digit annual economic growth, China is emerging as a major world power. Many economists predict that it is on track to become the world’s largest market by 2025. While raw economic data supports these predictions, other signs suggest that beneath the surface of China’s robust growth lies fragility and instability.

"Beneath the surface of China’s robust growth lies fragility and instability."

The recent ethnic clash between the Han majority and Uighur minority in the northwestern Xinjiang region is just the latest—yet perhaps also the bloodiest—indicator of social unrest. In 2004, China’s residents conducted roughly 74,000 mass protests—a figure that spiked from 10,000 in 1994. (After 2004/5, the government stopped publishing data about public protests. But some estimates suggest there were 87,000 protests in 2008.) China witnessed widespread migration from rural to urban areas, extensive displacement of workers and residents, and increasing disparities between the rich and poor, urban and rural, East and West, men and women, and the ethnic majority and minorities. Aside from social disruptions, China’s fast-paced industrialization also wreaked havoc on the environment—enough to warrant warning of a “crisis” by the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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