Xiaowu / Media is not reliable: Comment on “the strongest nail house”(Part II)

Written by Xiaowu

Part I... ...

There is another point noteworthy. The Xinhua Net (a media mouthpiece of the central government) followed the local media to massively cover this story. This not normal. ...

This demonstrates a common sense that the the local governments did not respond to this incident in the same way as the central government. The money from land auction went to the pocket of the local government. The central government didn't have much and plays the role of onlooker who is happy to see how the local government turned this incident into a scandal. When the local government became ugly under the spotlight of media, the central government would come out to say a few words in high profile and solve the problem. Then the local government and the victim would be like a defendant and the central government would become an arbiter. The arbiter's power would shift from the local government to the central government in a cleverly way. However, the local government is not stupid and has the machine of dictatorship and the excuse of “public interest”. If it has determination, it could solve it immediately.

After the Xinhua Net followed up this story for three days, the local government could not tolerate any more. The local government publicly stated that it would not satisfy the unreasonable demand. And some “legal authorities” further talked about the priority of public interest to private interest. The response of the local government was immediate. Media realized that their influence was not as effective as they imagined... ...

The media who committed in civil rights previously changed their tone and no longer published the photo of the woman owner shouting and holding the Constitution for civil rights. They covered the views of the “legal authorities” and government officials. Everything has changed. Just a few days, the problem was solved and the bulldozer came in. The human right heroine, who insisted on owning this house, obstinately clinging to the house, holding the Constitution, still cares about her own life. The couple left the house in a hurry. “Problem has been solved satisfactorily”. The farce ended.

Xiaowu / Media is not reliable: Comment on “the strongest nail house”(Part I)

Written by Xiaowu

... ... The incident of “the strongest nail house” was not a recent event. The couple have hung on for three years. The photo is circulated for a long time. Why did it suddenly attract so many people's attention and become an incident? The reason is not hard to imagine. After the introduction of the Property Law, those petty “intellectuals” and liberals working in media thought that it's time to test the government's sincerity on implementing this law. People with normal intelligence could predict the result that nobody could gain anything in these “typical” cases. But the media did not care about it. They did not care about the death of any victim or any bad result. The only thing they cared about is the increasing revenue from advertising. They did not care about the death or life of the victims. You're the victim crying and seeking our help, aren't you? We are helping you! You have to take full responsibility for any consequence. No matter whether it's good or bad, you could not blame it on media's conscious. No matter what result, in order to have the justice done, one needs this kind of courage. Otherwise he/she would not be qualified as liberals.

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Without other supporting forces, how could a person have hung on for three years? The government has many ways of solving this problem. If the government really wanted to do it forcefully, there would be no reason for not doing it. Even though there was a person inside the house, why was the government afraid of driving bulldozer to break into it? So I have argued that what really happened is not the same as the audience watched or read from the media. It is not about a tough resident fighting against government's violence and power. It is not an incident of human rights or protecting civil rights. It is definitely not an evidence to show that “wind may come in, rain may come in, but the king may not... ...” is true in China. There is a logic widely known operating. The local government did not take away this house immediately because some stronger forces working behind. From the TV news report, the woman of the office of demolition was not as arrogant and aggressive as the victim. There are some reasons for it. Imagining the victim as a heroine of human rights is only a wishful thinking of ordinary people. ... ...

To be continued

Photo from Zuola

Tsang's strategy after election

After the “fake” election, how different people read it might be a more interesting topic than the election itself.

Let's see the editorial of Hong Kong Economic Journal, a representative of rightists who supports free economy. The author of the editorial had criticized Leung Ka Kit a lot. But he/she is also dissatisfied with Donald Tsang. He/she argues that Tsang is not simply elected by the eight hundred people, but also has the support of public opinion. In the past two years' “probation”, Tsang attempted to win people's support but has enabled populism. Tsang supports minimum wage law and fair competition. It would damage the business environment and free economy. He demonstrates his true color of politician by promising tax reduction.

I can imagine that the rightists and some businessmen would try their best to repress Tsang's so-called “populism” (I personally don't agree with the usage of “populism” here).

Besides, Cheung Bing Leung's comment is noteworthy. This former democrat and current member of Executive Committee criticized Leung's overemphasis on universal suffrage. Leung shows his position as a political opponent but confuses “rule and govern” with “monitor”. It results in failing to convince people of democrats' ability to be in power.

Cheung advises the democrats to think more thoroughly: To be an opposition or to be a “government-in-waiting” who is ready to be in power.

The biggest function of Cheung Bing Leung is to offer favor to democrats or further divide and conquer them. Yet, Tsang is too stingy. Now the only news I heard about it is that one or two democrats would be recruited into the Executive Committee. In consideration of the case of Cheung, I don't believe that this would do anything about “power”. If Tsang really wanted to urge democrats to get ready for power, he should at least offer one or two places of bureau director! Pacifying needs some cost.

Let's see how Tsang will do his job of pacifying the oppositions. Yet I am quite sure that there are more challenges facing the democratic movement groups. They might get less and less friends and come across with enemies everywhere.

Demolition and Relocation

The photo of a Chongqing's "nail household" (釘子戶, a person or a family who refuses to move out during urban demolition and relocation) has circulated on internet for a while. I'm sure many people are stunned by this urban spectacle unique to contemporary China.

I feels neither optimistic nor pessimistic about the Property Law (Wuquan fa, 物權法). While some old leftists are worried about the public ownership as the foundation of socialist system challenged by this law, I suggest them show more care about the ordinary people's private property destroyed by the collusion of government and big capital. Many district governments of Chinese cities continue to demolish people's home in the name of "public interest". With or without this law, this brutal process will continue. All in all this is not simply a legal issue.

Now this "Chongqing nail household" turnes into a standstill. Hu Guo guessed that the high-ranking officials would settle down this issue in private. Now the developer is not able to remove him violently because he is under the spotlight of media. But the government would not support him publicly because this nail household might set an example for residents in the future.

Today Wang Xiaofeng made the association of urban demolition and relocation with sina blog. Some famous bloggers, such as Shu kewen, are "relocated" to sina without their consent. Sina wants to use these celebrities to promote its internet services. Wang asked: Could we sue Sina with the newly enacted Property Law?


Photo: Down in the Blue

Zhao Xiao: China imbalance

... ... The most crucial task for government to do is to explore the ultimate reasons for various phenomena and then fix the fundamental problems rather than treating symptom but not the disease. Government report spent a lot of space to talk about “Problems of Peasant, Village and Agriculture” . It also talked much about how government should help the disadvantaged groups. But the origin of these problems is the excessive power of government and insufficient civil rights. The disadvantaged people's power is the least. So the most important job is to strengthen civil rights and change the power structure rather than to improve people's livelihood. As Amartya Sen said, granting more freedom to people implies better development. It is not necessary to implement “secondary distribution” for actualizing so-called "equality of distribution".

From this perspective, I appreciate very much the report's evaluations such as “There are some weakness and insufficiency of government works” and “There are problems of government's building”. They are so rare and honest compared to the previous government reports. I particularly admire that the report mentioned that “develop democracy and strengthen legal system. This is the demands coming out of socialist system. To build a harmonious society, the most important is to strengthen democracy and legal system, and promote social justice.” This notion accurately captures the core problem of all facing contemporary China. China's problem lies on the fact that political reform lags behind economic institutional reform. This dis-equilibrium is the original problem leading to a lot of imbalances.

For example, why are there disequilibriums of consumption, investment and foreign trade in China? On the surface, it seems to be a macro-economic problem. However, there are political factors. The Government Work Report (2006) mentioned that during “The Tenth Five-year Plan”, GDP increased by 57.3%, city resident's average income increased by 58.3%, rural villager's net income increased by 29.2% and government revenue skyrocketed by 1.36 times. Obviously, government revenue growth is much higher than GDP growth and resident's growth. The increase in people's income also lags far behind GDP growth and government's financial income growth (This year's report further admitted this over-growth of financial revenue). Obviously, because of excessive growth of government's power and “coercive revenue”, distribution of national wealth is unequal. The insufficiency of residents' consumption leads to weak domestic demand. That is why Chinese enterprises resort to foreign trade to look for a better market.

The ordinary people could not afford medical fees, school fees, and high price of apartment. People put the blame on market failure. The reality is that government's supply of housing, education and medical services (market oriented and public) is not enough. What lies behind is the insufficiency of public pressure on government power. The underdevelopment of civil rights leads to insufficient supply of public good and services.

Among the disadvantaged group, peasant is the poorest because they are far away from power centre. If peasant has the same power as urban resident, would the “Problems of Peasant, Village and Agriculture” be so serious? Therefore, if you say peasant is too poor, I would say that peasant is lacking power. If you suggest reduction of tax for peasant, I suggest grant more power of self-government to peasant.

Unequal distribution of power leads to the “zero-sum game” in which the gain of some people results in some people's loss. This causes social disharmony. Recently, the Special Topic Team of Public Policy Research Centre, Chinese Association of Economic Institutional Reform, calculated the price difference between the two systems (market and non-market). The results show that there is no difference between the present and the past. In 2004, considering the effect of public power, the price difference is as high as 4.7 billion yuan, about 1.5 times the annual revenue. The land price difference is 528.5 billion yuan. The monopoly rent sought by monopoly industry is 212.5 billion yuan. The loss of national asset is 71.549 billion yuan. The rent caused by corruption is 20 billion yuan. According to this estimation, the total of rent caused by government monopoly and corruption reaches 832.549 billion yuan, about 5.2% of GDP and 55.1% of the annual revenue of the central government.

Without the disgusting new system of two prices, China’s gini coefficient is 0.3797 in 2004. Because of corruption and restriction, China’s gini coefficient is going up to 0.465, the warning line of wealth gap according to international standard. Although China’s marketization seems to be speeding up, the space for rent seeking caused by government power is becoming bigger and bigger. All these show that the fundamental of all disequilibrium is power inequality. Without political reform, reform itself is skewed. The steps of economic and political reforms are incoherent. The combination of marketization and traditional political institution fail to enable China to march forward in a health way.

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Excerpt from source: 趙曉＜失衡的中國＞

Photo: sheilaz413