Mass incidents are testing China

• Source: Global Times
• [08:16 June 29 2009]
• Comments

By Pi Yijun

“Mass incidents,” a term coined in China in recent years, mostly refers to public disturbances created by a substantial number of agents who express their aspirations to safeguard their legitimate but obstructed interests and rights through nonviolent or violent means.

The immediate causes of mass incidents are extremely diverse, including compulsory resettlement, violent law enforcement, environmental pollution, defaulting on workers’ wages, and so on.

However, the exponential growth of mass incidents since the 1990s, from fewer than 10,000 per year in 1993 to approximately 90,000 in 2006, is a symptom of deeper social problems emerging in China’s rapid transition.

It is worth noting here that mass incidents break out widely in almost any country that achieves high GDP growth and undergoes great economic and social change.

Though many people are not poorer than before, they feel relatively impoverished as many others become richer. Current government management is lagging behind economic change, breeding corruption and preventing the legal system, labor unions and peasant unions from playing a prominent role in protecting the rights of their interest groups. Interest disputes are still subject to governmental solutions, which are inefficient.

All these senses of injustice the disadvantaged groups have been feeling manifest themselves as social hostility, the driving force of mass incidents.

The rift between them is amplified when many local government officials lack the will and skills to deal with concrete disputes or troubles raised by ordinary people. Social hostility escalates into anger and resentment. A small civil dispute can sometimes lead to an emotionally driven mass incident.

However, strategic concerns may also come into play in mass incidents, as many believe that the greater an uproar they create, the more thoroughly their problems will be solved by the higher authorities.

Mass incidents are among the extreme options adopted by common people to rectify the injustices in social and political life. But apparently they lead to damage and loss in lives and properties, endanger social stability and undermine trust and cooperation. However, the government should not be intimidated by mass incidents, as it has many more peaceful and effective ways to make mass incidents less likely to happen.

Governmental solutions to civil disputes can hardly be fair. Disputes should be left in the capable hands of the legal system. Of course, a prerequisite is the existence of an independent and just legal system.

Mechanisms for reconciling competing interests should be increased and improved to allow interest groups to defend themselves and negotiate with one another in a more rational and institutionalized fashion.

Media should be given more freedom to expose officials who abuse their power. In that regard, China’s online public opinion is already a pioneer.

This article was complied by Ao Lin based on an interview with the author, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law