Forecasting Social Unrest and the search for sensationalism

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By Brendan John Worrell (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-02-10 11:13

Rather than picking at the seams of China that are being stressed by the present economic turmoil – we should focus on the fabric that keeps the country together.

There are concerns the current context is ripe for disturbance.

This fear is being fed by the current economic downturn where an official 20 million migrant workers have lost their jobs and are returning back to the countryside or lingering on in the cities.

Six million domestic university students who have recently graduated now also join the ranks of unemployed.

Thousands of other Chinese who have studied abroad and can not find work are also returning home.

Elsewhere, others who had been working abroad after graduating in western countries have recently been laid off, thanks to the closure of companies who employed their expertise in accounting, IT and the financial sector.

And finally add to the brew almost a million graduates from the year before who had yet to even find a job!

Now into this 'melting pot' add several key anniversary dates that fall this year and it can create an aura of doom.

Last night's fire next to the CCTV tower here in Beijing was also seen as an ominous sign.

Rather timely, tomorrow sees a presentation by Wang Erping of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, under the banner, Forecasting Social Unrest. His team at the CAS Institute of Psychology has apparently constructed a methodology for predicting domestic disturbance.

Now paralleling these issues, others have voiced concern that China has excessive nationalist tendencies, which if not managed, could spin out of control.

Definitely times are tough.

Definitely a small minority may take the opportunity to try and create disorder.

And definitely the Chinese people love their country with a burning impassioned heart.

But if there is one thing that dominates above all else it's the reality that the overwhelming majority value stability and fear civil disorder. Remember the keystone within Chinese philosophy is harmony and most possess an understanding of what happened last time the nation was fragmented.

So if we are expecting the country to break out in civil war, or if we are expecting the country to take up arms to project some pent up unemployed rage on another nation, then we may be disappointed.

Quickly looking around at the neighborhood be it the Koreas, Russia, the island province of Taiwan, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Myanmar – China appears to be successfully balancing relations.

Others warn of a changing US-China dynamic but the relationship here is actually maturing. The style of the new US president bears similarity to the Chinese style of multi-lateral diplomacy and consensus building.

Trade protectionism and "Buy America" also has its limits. China is awash with American companies and their goods and services and local consumers do not appear willing to react and boycott KFC, McDonalds, Coke, Pepsi, Chrysler, Boeing, Buick and ‘Brangelina’ any time soon.

As for Japan, the first stop on Hillary's upcoming Tour de Asia, apart from minor murmurings regarding the Diaoyu islands, things here have also been on the incremental mend. Last week their Supreme Court even ordered a rightist scholar, and publisher to pay a combined four million yen in damages to Xia Shuqin, aged 80 regarding events in Nanjing back in 1937.

But if you wanted to bring up significant anniversaries you could mention that on this day 70 years ago, the Japanese Fifth Fleet invaded China’s Hainan where an estimated third of the island's male population were executed for resisting.

But this anniversary is not commemorated with anger or calls for vengeance. People are getting on with their lives and are focused on development, rather than stirring up pain from the past. Other anniversaries that ‘the west’ is playing up that could be sticking points this year are also being ignored.

So as the present global economy continues to slide, we should actually remember the last Great Depression and the war that followed. The economic circumstances and questionable statesmanship that culminated in that global conflagration are not so distant or so divergent that they couldn't be repeated again today.

But precedent would suggest others, not China, would be the antagonists in any such event. The memories here of being partitioned and brutalized by foreign powers are still too vivid in the public eye to the point that the majority of Chinese feel revulsion towards war.

Ultimately forecasting social unrest may have as much success as our attempts at predicting earthquakes. Ideally we could, and in the process save a lot of lives, but until we can, we may be better off concentrating on those aspects that bring people together, rather than looking at those things that can rip communities and people apart.