Critics of the ‘new China’ point to corruption and illiteracy

Press, 17 January 1986, Page 16

Critics of the ‘new China’ point to corruption and illiteracy

By

JONATHAN MIRSKY

China is entering the Year of the Tiger. Tigers, traditionally, are believed to be the best guards against thieves and ghosts. In the coming year Deng Xiaoping, at 81 still the country’s supreme leader, will need all the tigers he can get. Theft, or official corruption on a vast scale, and the spectres of inequality, student unrest, and antiforeignism are threatening postMao China which for five years has basked in excellent weather and self-congratulation, while enjoying acclaim from abroad for its stability and neo-capitalism. But facts, as the Chinese say, teach hard lessons, and recently the news and the weather have not been good. First came a report on the meagre “cultural level” of China’s 800 million peasants, the 80 per cent of the population on whom Deng is depending to reach his goal of total modernisation within 50 years. '

According to the “Economic Daily,” many peasant children fail to complete even five years of primary school where, in any event, 53 per cent of their teachers are unqualified. Fewer rural children attend middle school each year, and of those who do, 1.6 million drop out annually. Peasants who pay for their children’s education see little advantage in keeping them in inferior schools where they are prepared badly for the examinations which alone are the gateway out of the paddy, and prefer to set them to work at home. Peasants, notes the journal, make up the majority of the country’s 335 million illiterates. Nor are as peasants rich as

previously advertised. Although they are reported to be 70 per cent better off than in 1978 (not a good year), modernisation is reaching them very slowly. According to “Economic Daily,” 40 per cent have no access to television—the number of owners is smaller still; 33 per cent cannot get to a radio; only 0.2 per cent are near a telephone; and only 17 per cent are within reach of a daily newspaper. Even on the edges of Shanghai, the richest city in China’s richest area, many villages still are gripped by the “Four Nos”—no libraries, newspapers, sports, or cultural amenities. The depths of rural poverty during the 30-year Maoist era are now becoming clear. Most peasants are still poor. Until a few months ago the official press was trumpeting the successes of rural families making up to $BO,OOO a year. But a September survey disclosed that even in prosperous areas annual per capita incomes were barely $3OO, and that over-zealous Dengist cadres had been regularly exagerating them by 30 to 50 per cent. In late September, a Politburo member, Chen Yun, Deng’s most vocal adversary in the leadership, dismissed as insignificant reports of hugely successful rural entrepreneurs, and condemned the press as out of touch with reality. In addition to rural inequality, another spectre raised by Chen Yun in September was the threat of food shortages if Government

policies continued to reduce grain supplies. Raising the ultimate fear of Chinese Governments for 2000 years, Chen foresaw “social disorder.”

Chen’s warning was all-too timely. Not since the great grain crisis of the late 1950 s which led to at least 16 million dead of hunger, has grain production declined as it has this year—after Peking’s boasts that not even terrible weather could prevent the second biggest harvest ever. It is now known that it will be down to 354 million tonnes compared with 404 million in 1984. The Government concedes that floods and droughts are less important than the reduction in grain acreage, as peasants flocked to rural industries or concentrated. on money-making cash crops. What Peking has yet to admit is the effect of the 50 per cent drop in agricultural investments since 1978. Until now the balmy weather and unshackled peasant enterprise have resulted in huge harvests which are unlikely to continue without injections of capital. Another ghost from the past is student unrest, a paradox for Deng who endlessly repeats that trained intellectuals are the secret of rapid regrowth. Since the beginning of the century, nationalistic university students have demanded modernisation while insisting that China does not allow itself to be swamped by foreign influences. For months, Peking students

have been pasting up wall posters - and even demonstrating against ' Japanese militarism and imports. • Memories of student disruptions during the Cultural Revolution - drove Government leaders on to' campuses all over China to plead .■ for discipline. ;

On December 9, the 50th anni- ’ versary of nationwide anti-Japan-ese disturbances, campuses were closed to foreign observers, and 4000 middle school students were “ paraded into Peking’s central square where, ringed by police, they pledged allegiance to the, Party. What the Party cannot contain is ?, the growing national revulsion against official corruption. China has been rocked by multi- - million dollar scandals involving Party officials misusing their power to get very rich indeed. In .* October alone 67,000 officials were implicated in nearly 28,000 swindies. Last month, the head 0f..» Peking’s public utility department, - his deputy, and a number of “special model class workers” j were indicted for embezzling $870,000 to establish their private Peace Gas Company. Deng’s critics are focusing on billions of dollars worth of lost foreign exchange, misplaced national revenues, dwindling ports. In such an uncertain atmosphere, China’s leaders will be searching for a spiritual tiger to deal with ’ ghosts and thieves. Their critics are already accusing them of a more dangerous activity: riding the ' tiger. Copyright—London Observer