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Unease in 'Happy Guangdong'
By JEREMY PAGE
ZENGCHENG, ChinaThis was supposed to be the debut year of "Happy Guangdong"a slogan coined by the high-flying provincial Communist Party chief in this southern export powerhouse.
But a disturbingly different image emerged this week after migrant workers attacked government buildings and overturned police cars in Guangdong's jeans-making hub of Zengcheng and the ceramics center of Chaozhou, two of the latest incidents in a spate of similar outbursts across China over the last month.
The unrest here sends a troubling message to China's leaders: Much of Guangdong is not happy: It is dangerously discontentand what happens here in China's richest, fastest-growing and most populous province often portends the direction of the rest of the country.
Public anger is already boiling over in other urban areas this summer as the party's five-year drive to build a "harmonious society" is undercut by a host of divisive social issues, most notably a yawning wealth gap and rampant inflation, which has pushed up the price of porkChina's favorite meatby 54 % in a year.
Yet provincial leaders, under mounting pressure to maintain social order, are resorting to a combination of platitudes and brute force in the absence of clear guidance from Beijing on China's main challenge: how to wrench the country away from the export-driven economic model that was pioneered in Guangdong but is running out of steam.
At the forefront of this painful transition is Wang Yang, the party chief who authored the "Happy Guangdong" campaign and is considered a frontrunner for promotion to the Politburo Standing Committeewhose nine members are the country's top decision makers at a once-a-decade leadership change next year.
In an exclusive written interview before the latest unrest, Mr. Wang explained why he launched "Happy Guangdong" in January at the same time as lowering the annual growth target for the province to 8% for the next five years, compared with actual average growth of 12.4% annually for the last five.
"We want to grow a little slower in order to grow a little better," he said. "We've already overtaken Singapore in terms of the size of our economy, but we hope to overtake it also in terms of GDP per capita, happiness, and social civilization."
He declined, however, to give any details of how he planned to enhance a sense of wellbeing among Guangdong's 104 million residentsespecially its 25 million migrant workersand seemed to struggle to offer a coherent definition of "happiness".
Quoting from a book called "Happier" by Tal Ben-Shahar, an Israeli author, lecturer and former squash champion who used to teach a course on "positive psychology" at Harvard, Mr. Wang declared: "So-called happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning."
"For an individual it's an attitude, a subjective notion," he said as he attempted to apply the idea to all of Guangdong. "But for a whole group, a whole region, having common values for judging whether we are happy or not is the life state and experience that we should seek and enjoy and build together."
The vagueness of his answer speaks to a lack of policy direction both in Guangdong and in Beijing. Party leaders have lowered China's annual growth targetseen as largely symbolicto 7% for the next five years, and vowed to focus on "happiness" by addressing issues of public concern such as inflation, corruption and land grabs.
Like Mr. Wang, however, they have given no details of how they plans to tackle these problems, apart from making repeated calls for improved "social management"a catch-all phrase that appears to include riot police, teargas and armored vehicles.
Mr. Wang has so far remained silent on the unrest in Guangdong: A spokesman said he was traveling abroad, and would not return early or comment on the issue as local authorities were experienced in handling such problems.
"It hasn't reached such a low point that it would alarm the [party] secretary," said the spokesman.
It's unlikely the recent unrest will seriously damage Mr. Wang's chances of ascending to the Standing Committee: For one thing, at 56, he is one of the few people on the aging 25-member Politburo who is the right age.
The violence nonetheless comes at an awkward time for Mr. Wang as he vies with other frontrunnersnotably Bo Xilai, his successor as party chief in the southwestern city of Chongqingfor the most powerful portfolios on the Standing Committee.
Party leaders have lavished praise on Mr. Bo for his high-profile campaign to revive revolutionary spirit and stamp out organized crime in Chongqing and some are even portraying the metropolis of 32 million people as a model for the rest of the country.
Mr. Wang has won no such plaudits for his efforts in Guangdong, which accounts for about 11% of China's GDP and a third of its exports, and has been seen as a bellwether for the rest of the country since quickly becoming its manufacturing center after China's economic reforms were launched here three decades ago.
He has tried to push forward those reforms by overseeing the closure or relocation of low-end manufacturing plants such as those in Zengcheng, encouraging investment in high-end manufacturing and service industries, and narrowing the income gap between rural and urban areas of Guangdong. His strategy is driven in large measure by competition from inland regions, including Chongqing, with cheaper labor, land and other business costs.
As a result, the number of migrant laborers from outside Guangdong declined by almost two million between 2007-2010, while the number of migrant workers from rural areas of Guangdong increased by almost 2.5 million, he said.
He has also transformed Guangzhou, the provincial capital, into a more international city, staging the Asian Games there last year, and enlisting the Iraqi-British architect, Zaha Hadid, to design a futuristic opera house.
Yet his efforts to emulate Singapore's "happiness and social civilization" have been repeatedly overshadowed by unrest and other social problems, especially among migrant laborers who do not qualify for many basic public services.
The violence in Zengcheng began after security guards pushed to the ground a pregnant street vendor from the western province of Sichuan, and untrue rumors spread that she and her husband had been killed. Police say they have detained a man suspected of starting those rumors.
But migrant workers said the violence had also been fuelled by anger at rising food prices, and often violent abuse from security guards, especially against migrants working as street vendors because of a shortage of jobs in the local jeans factories.
Earlier last week, similar riots erupted in nearby Chaozhou after migrant workers, also from Sichuan, complained that a ceramics factory had delayed their wages.
Last year, Guangdong was also roiled by a series of suicides at a vast plant in the city of Shenzhen where Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. assembles iPads and other gadgets for companies like Apple Inc. and by strikes at three Honda-affiliated plants. Both Hon Hai and the Honda suppliers subsequently increased wages.
Last month, Shenzhen authorities expelled 800,000 "high-risk" peoplemostly migrant laborersto ensure a stable environment for an international university sports competition known as the Universiade.
Of ten questions submitted to Mr. Wang, he declined to answer five which related to more sensitive issues, such as whether he intended to rely more on non-governmental organizations, long regarded with suspicion as they operate beyond direct party control, to help address social problems.
He did, however, try to explain the complexities of switching to an economic model driven by high-end industry, with fewer jobs for migrants from other provinces, and based on "happiness" rather than unbridled growth.
"The transformation and upgrade of industry is a difficult process. To give an analogy, it takes a few hours to change the water in a bathing pool, and perhaps ten or 15 days to change that in a large reservoir," he said.
"Guangdong is a vast reservoir second to none....and a slight change might affect the whole situation."
Unease in 'Happy Guangdong' - WSJ.com
By JEREMY PAGE
ZENGCHENG, ChinaThis was supposed to be the debut year of "Happy Guangdong"a slogan coined by the high-flying provincial Communist Party chief in this southern export powerhouse.
But a disturbingly different image emerged this week after migrant workers attacked government buildings and overturned police cars in Guangdong's jeans-making hub of Zengcheng and the ceramics center of Chaozhou, two of the latest incidents in a spate of similar outbursts across China over the last month.
The unrest here sends a troubling message to China's leaders: Much of Guangdong is not happy: It is dangerously discontentand what happens here in China's richest, fastest-growing and most populous province often portends the direction of the rest of the country.
Public anger is already boiling over in other urban areas this summer as the party's five-year drive to build a "harmonious society" is undercut by a host of divisive social issues, most notably a yawning wealth gap and rampant inflation, which has pushed up the price of porkChina's favorite meatby 54 % in a year.
Yet provincial leaders, under mounting pressure to maintain social order, are resorting to a combination of platitudes and brute force in the absence of clear guidance from Beijing on China's main challenge: how to wrench the country away from the export-driven economic model that was pioneered in Guangdong but is running out of steam.
At the forefront of this painful transition is Wang Yang, the party chief who authored the "Happy Guangdong" campaign and is considered a frontrunner for promotion to the Politburo Standing Committeewhose nine members are the country's top decision makers at a once-a-decade leadership change next year.
In an exclusive written interview before the latest unrest, Mr. Wang explained why he launched "Happy Guangdong" in January at the same time as lowering the annual growth target for the province to 8% for the next five years, compared with actual average growth of 12.4% annually for the last five.
"We want to grow a little slower in order to grow a little better," he said. "We've already overtaken Singapore in terms of the size of our economy, but we hope to overtake it also in terms of GDP per capita, happiness, and social civilization."
He declined, however, to give any details of how he planned to enhance a sense of wellbeing among Guangdong's 104 million residentsespecially its 25 million migrant workersand seemed to struggle to offer a coherent definition of "happiness".
Quoting from a book called "Happier" by Tal Ben-Shahar, an Israeli author, lecturer and former squash champion who used to teach a course on "positive psychology" at Harvard, Mr. Wang declared: "So-called happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning."
"For an individual it's an attitude, a subjective notion," he said as he attempted to apply the idea to all of Guangdong. "But for a whole group, a whole region, having common values for judging whether we are happy or not is the life state and experience that we should seek and enjoy and build together."
The vagueness of his answer speaks to a lack of policy direction both in Guangdong and in Beijing. Party leaders have lowered China's annual growth targetseen as largely symbolicto 7% for the next five years, and vowed to focus on "happiness" by addressing issues of public concern such as inflation, corruption and land grabs.
Like Mr. Wang, however, they have given no details of how they plans to tackle these problems, apart from making repeated calls for improved "social management"a catch-all phrase that appears to include riot police, teargas and armored vehicles.
Mr. Wang has so far remained silent on the unrest in Guangdong: A spokesman said he was traveling abroad, and would not return early or comment on the issue as local authorities were experienced in handling such problems.
"It hasn't reached such a low point that it would alarm the [party] secretary," said the spokesman.
It's unlikely the recent unrest will seriously damage Mr. Wang's chances of ascending to the Standing Committee: For one thing, at 56, he is one of the few people on the aging 25-member Politburo who is the right age.
The violence nonetheless comes at an awkward time for Mr. Wang as he vies with other frontrunnersnotably Bo Xilai, his successor as party chief in the southwestern city of Chongqingfor the most powerful portfolios on the Standing Committee.
Party leaders have lavished praise on Mr. Bo for his high-profile campaign to revive revolutionary spirit and stamp out organized crime in Chongqing and some are even portraying the metropolis of 32 million people as a model for the rest of the country.
Mr. Wang has won no such plaudits for his efforts in Guangdong, which accounts for about 11% of China's GDP and a third of its exports, and has been seen as a bellwether for the rest of the country since quickly becoming its manufacturing center after China's economic reforms were launched here three decades ago.
He has tried to push forward those reforms by overseeing the closure or relocation of low-end manufacturing plants such as those in Zengcheng, encouraging investment in high-end manufacturing and service industries, and narrowing the income gap between rural and urban areas of Guangdong. His strategy is driven in large measure by competition from inland regions, including Chongqing, with cheaper labor, land and other business costs.
As a result, the number of migrant laborers from outside Guangdong declined by almost two million between 2007-2010, while the number of migrant workers from rural areas of Guangdong increased by almost 2.5 million, he said.
He has also transformed Guangzhou, the provincial capital, into a more international city, staging the Asian Games there last year, and enlisting the Iraqi-British architect, Zaha Hadid, to design a futuristic opera house.
Yet his efforts to emulate Singapore's "happiness and social civilization" have been repeatedly overshadowed by unrest and other social problems, especially among migrant laborers who do not qualify for many basic public services.
The violence in Zengcheng began after security guards pushed to the ground a pregnant street vendor from the western province of Sichuan, and untrue rumors spread that she and her husband had been killed. Police say they have detained a man suspected of starting those rumors.
But migrant workers said the violence had also been fuelled by anger at rising food prices, and often violent abuse from security guards, especially against migrants working as street vendors because of a shortage of jobs in the local jeans factories.
Earlier last week, similar riots erupted in nearby Chaozhou after migrant workers, also from Sichuan, complained that a ceramics factory had delayed their wages.
Last year, Guangdong was also roiled by a series of suicides at a vast plant in the city of Shenzhen where Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. assembles iPads and other gadgets for companies like Apple Inc. and by strikes at three Honda-affiliated plants. Both Hon Hai and the Honda suppliers subsequently increased wages.
Last month, Shenzhen authorities expelled 800,000 "high-risk" peoplemostly migrant laborersto ensure a stable environment for an international university sports competition known as the Universiade.
Of ten questions submitted to Mr. Wang, he declined to answer five which related to more sensitive issues, such as whether he intended to rely more on non-governmental organizations, long regarded with suspicion as they operate beyond direct party control, to help address social problems.
He did, however, try to explain the complexities of switching to an economic model driven by high-end industry, with fewer jobs for migrants from other provinces, and based on "happiness" rather than unbridled growth.
"The transformation and upgrade of industry is a difficult process. To give an analogy, it takes a few hours to change the water in a bathing pool, and perhaps ten or 15 days to change that in a large reservoir," he said.
"Guangdong is a vast reservoir second to none....and a slight change might affect the whole situation."
Unease in 'Happy Guangdong' - WSJ.com
