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The Ten Grave Problems Facing China

Posted on 8 September 2012 by Geremie R Barmé

In April 1956, Mao Zedong gave a speech to the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party
titled ‘On the Ten Great Relationships’ 论十大关系. It was a decisive period for New China.
The initial surge of nationalisation that saw the country’s industry and agriculture come
under state control was building into a tidal wave of radical socialism that would dominate
the country for the next two decades. In the build up to this next stage of dirigisme Mao
thought it essential to articulate the problems facing the fledgling People’s Republic. He
listed ten issues that underlined social, economic, regional and national policy; he was in
reality outlining the challenges that faced the Communist Party’s experiment in
transforming China.

A popular observation about political uncertainty in Chinese holds that ‘when evil
prognosticators appear in all quarters it is a sign of the end of days’ 末世征兆，妖孽四起.
Elsewhere we have noted the dire warnings issued by left-leaning critics of China’s
Communist Party such as the Children of Yan’an and the latter-day red fundamentalists of
the Utopia group. In recent days, an editor with the journal Study Times 学习时报 has
published a lengthy article in which he outlines ‘The Ten Grave Problems Facing China’.

During the once-in-a-decade ‘transition year’ of 2012-2013 which will see a change of party-
state leadership, Communist Party propagandists have set the tone and require media
outlets to celebrate clamorously the ‘ten golden years’ of rule under President/Party
General Secretary Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao (for an example of these hosannas, see
People’s Daily, ‘The Reasons for China’s “Glorious Decade” ’, in our China Story Yearbook
2012: Red Rising, Red Eclipse, ‘From Victory to Victory’). It is a time of extreme tension and
high stakes, one in which China faces major political decisions that may well determine its
direction not only for the next few years, but, as many feel, for long into the future. At this
juncture a more lowly Party member than the late Chairman has offered his version of the
problems facing the restive and fractured nation.

‘The Ten Grave Problems’ 十大问题 forms the second section of a three-part feuilleton or
‘pamphlet’ (in its earlier rabble-rousing sense) by Deng Yuwen 邓聿文 titled ‘The Political
Legacy of Hu-Wen’ 胡温的政治遗产. It appeared online in Caijing 财经 magazine in late
August-early September. Although the author echoes the formal Party line and extols the
peerless achievements of the Hu-Wen decade, Deng goes on to deliver an accusatory
accounting of China’s underlying social, economic, regional, political and ideological
problems. He frames them as monumentally important issues that have grown in scale and
gravity as a result of a stability obsessed government that, under the cover of consensual
politics, has allowed pressing concerns to fester. They are issues of critical importance not
only for China’s ruling party, but by extension for the world as a whole. An indictment of
political lassitude, ‘The Ten Grave Problems’ is also framed as an agenda that demands the
immediate attention of the party-state’s incoming leaders.

‘The Ten Grave Problems’ is merely one of the more public eructations of the one-party
system of China. In earlier leadership transitions and crises thinkers, or to use an older
expression ‘strategists’ 纵横家, have always played a crucial role. Ke Qingshi, Chen Boda,
Yao Wenyuan and Zhang Chunqiao were prominent in the 1960s; thereafter, Hu Qiaomu
and Deng Liqun (among others) rose to influence in the late 1970s and early 80s under
Deng Xiaoping. Then, in the late 1980s, there were contending thinkers like He Xin, Wang
Juntao and Chen Ziming. During the present power transition, one that began as early as
2007, individuals and groups have been vying to provide intellectual and strategic advice to
the contenders for power. In the guise of ‘worrying about China’ 忧患意识 (a subject which
Gloria Davies has addressed at length and with great eloquence) these intellectual activists
struggle to formulate a future for the Party, or rather party-state, while forging careers that
realise the prized goal of having the last word first and, to use another traditional
formulation, ‘managing worldy affairs’ 经世.

The contestation for influence among Chinese thinkers has been exacerbated by a sense of
crisis that many say is similar to that of the late 1980s, a time when ‘crisis consciousness’
was rife. Writing for Reuters, Chris Buckley reports that the putative future Party General
Secretary and President of China, Xi Jinping, is taking note, and even attempting to quell the
disquiet before a Chinese version of the trahison de clercs sets off an unpredictable chain
of events. (Agitators on the left and the right call for drastic action to be taken against
endemic corruption; others warn that any concerted effort in this regard would not only

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encounter serious opposition, it may well presage, or indeed incite, top-down socio-political
instability.)

‘The Ten Grave Problems’ section of Deng’s essay is perhaps the most damning list of
political failures of the Hu-Wen era that has appeared in a mainland publication. Despite
being ‘harmonised’ nearly instantly from the Chinese Internet by assiduous net police, the
text of ‘The Ten Grave Problems’ continues to circulate widely and spark discussion (and, in
some circles, Schadenfreude). It is available in summary at Chinese Elections and
Governance, while the original is posted by Political China.

Many of the issues raised below are touched on in our recently published China Story
Yearbook 2012: Red Rising Red Eclipse, available on this site.

The following is a partial translation of Deng’s feuilleton by Eric Mu of Danwei.—Geremie. R.

Barmé

 ___________________

Ten Grave Problems

The first section of this essay reviews the achievements of the Hu-Wen administration over
the past decade from a historical point of view. Generally speaking, China has made
considerable progress during this time. However, as mentioned above, behind the
successes, problems have proliferated. To be frank, the problems that were engendered
and spawned during the last decade may well outweigh the achievements. For the
Communist Party, the biggest and most urgent issue to be addressed is that, in the course
of leading people towards a well-off and affluent society, the Party has come to confront a
crisis over the legitimacy of its rule that has resulted from: its failure to address the
widening income gap; worsening corruption; inability to effectively achieve social
integration; and, failure to meet public demands for increased democracy.

In addition, the Hu-Wen administration has failed to make progress—indeed, it may well
have gone backwards, in at least some areas listed below that concerns China’s
modernization:

No progress has been made in restructuring China’s economy. There has been a failure to
build a domestic demand-driven economy, and a failure to implement effective policies to
reform wealth distribution and prevent the income gap from widening. Despite a few
rounds of new regulations governing the real estate market, the results remain uncertain. A
social security system has been established but remains rudimentary. There has been a
failure to make the residency permit system independent from public services, this in turn
prevents migrant workers from being integrated into the cities despite rapid urbanization.

The problems related to an aging population have been exacerbated and there is a big lag
between population policies and social reality. Environmental pollution has increased and
shows no signs of improving. An ‘ecological civilisation’ has failed to emerge. The education
system is becoming more and more bureaucratized and its guiding philosophy is in dire
need of fundamental rethinking. Some significant results have been achieved as regards
scientific research, but few are truly original or in the fields of basic science. Morality is
collapsing; the core values of society are becoming more and more elusive. Social
stratification is becoming more rigid and institutionalized. Conflicts between the
government and people are becoming more and more radical. The government’s capacity
to provide public services and management remains low. There has been a failure to
nurture and enlarge a middle class, etc.

Below are some of the most significant problems, with explication:

Grave Problem 1

No breakthroughs in economic restructuring and constructing a consumer-driven economy

Though China’s economy is now the second largest in the world, it is both distorted in
structure and of low quality. Vulnerable to fluctuations of the external economic
environment, the current development model is an obstacle to long-term prosperity. China
has to shift from the current model that overly stresses investment and exports and high
resource consumption to a high-tech, consumer-driven economy as well as solve the inner
rebalancing problem of the economy 经济内部的再平衡问题. However, restrained by vested
interest groups including regional governments, little has been done in this regard. In
particular, following the global financial crisis priority shifted from reform and restructuring
to merely maintaining growth.

Grave Problem 2

Failure to nurture and grow a middle class

The history of modern states indicates that the middle class is the cornerstone of social
stability and prosperity. But certain conditions need to be created to help a middle class
grow: the middle class should be the mainstay of class structure, and the government needs

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to work to ensure the growth of the middle class through adjusting policies concerning
income, housing and social security. In the last decade, benefiting from the economic
boom, the sheer number of middle class people increased. However, the growth rate lags
far behind general economic growth rates, as a result of the lack of any mechanism to
nurture the middle class. As regards income distribution, reform has stagnated, resulting in
an ever-increasing gap between rich and poor. The road leading towards the middle class is
becoming even bumpier for low-income households. High housing prices have eroded
people’s spending power, putting middle-class the living standards beyond their reach.
Bearish stock markets have sucked in people’s savings yet denied them the chance of
getting returns on investment. These are just some areas where the government should
have done better.

Grave Problem 3

The rural-urban gap has increased

The residence permit system used to be the main tool used to rein in urban migration, in
particular, the migration of farmers. In the past decade, despite increasing migration, the
residence permit system remains tied to public services, and influences local government
tax incomes and regional economic growth, therefore there is little incentive for reform.
Some small cities have loosened their controls, but barriers remain high, and migrant
workers still have great difficulties adapting to cities and obtaining new urban identities.
The delay of residence permit reform has also radicalised conflicts between the countryside
and cities, exacerbated government land sales and worsened the situation of landless
farmers. Farmers’ interests are trampled on, and the traditional urban resident-farmer two-
element structure has evolved into triangular structure of urban, rural workers and
farmers.

Grave Problem 4

Population policy lags behind reality

The population is aging at an accelerated rate. Giving birth is a basic human right, but in the
last decade the state continues its rigid one-child policy, which not only contributes to the
aging of the population and a depletion of the demographic dividend, but also affects the
country’s economic growth, retirement benefits, causing grievances to many families that
have lost their only children, exacerbating the imbalanced sex ratio at birth, as well as other
social problems. Birth-regulation policies trample on countless people’s rights on a daily
basis.

Grave Problem 5

The bureaucratization and profit-incentivisation of educational and scientific research

institutions shows no indication of being ameliorated and it continues to stifle creativity.
Education and scientific research is the foundation of a country. In the past decade, even
though major progress has been made, quantity instead of quality is given priority. Few
great scientists have emerged and original results are scarce. All these impair the
realization of the goal of constructing an innovative country. The bureaucratization of the
educational system has became more entrenched. The guiding philosophy of education is
tilted more and more towards profit-generation, as universities and scientific research
institutes alike are evaluated on the basis of the number of published papers, which has
taken a toll on people’s spirit and capacity of innovation.

Grave Problem 6

Environmental pollution continues to worsen

There has been no improvement in environmental protection. ‘Coarse economic
development’ is often marked by the high environmental cost that one pays for economic
growth. Over the past decade, large numbers of energy-intensive, highly polluting projects
have been launched, leading to further damage of our shared homeland and further
diminishing the quality of life. Welfare and life itself is threatened by pollution. In addition,
conflicts and confrontations are becoming more frequent and more intense, putting the
concept of creating an ‘ecological civilisation’ sorely to the test.

Grave Problem 7

The government has failed to establish a stable energy supply system

China’s current development model can only be sustained by large amounts of energy.
China’s per capita energy reserve is very low and its energy supply relies heavily on imports.
As a result, if China can’t maintain stable and diversified energy sources, it will be at mercy
of other countries and its long-term plans will be compromised. Over the past decade,
though China has been actively seeking to expand its overseas markets and develop new
energy technologies, it has failed to build either a stable energy supply network or the
necessary military prowess to safeguard such a network, while the development of new
energy technologies remains rudimentary.

Grave Problem 8

Moral lapses and the collapse of ideology. The government has failed to build an effective

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and convincing value system that can be accepted by the majority of its people
If a society is unable to prevent moral standards from degenerating, and if its members are
unrestrained by any moral principle and have no sense of shame and see nothing but profit
as their goal in life, it will soon descend to the level of the jungle. In the past decade, while
the economy has developed rapidly, the state of morality has declined. In a time when old
moral standards have collapsed, and the ideology developed during the revolutionary era
has become bankrupt, a modern moral system suitable for a new market economy and
commercial civilisation has failed to fill in the gap. As a result, there are no guiding
principles for the society. The damage done to the people’s spirit and the effects of the
crisis of faith are gradual and subtle. This trend has hardly been reversed in the past
decade.

Grave Problem 9

‘Firefighting’ and ‘stability-maintenance’ style diplomacy lacks vision, strategic thinking and
specific measures
The state has failed to take advantage of the opportunities that have come with the shift in
the international order. China has landing itself in a passive position. In the past decade,
even though China has gained in power when it comes to deciding international affairs and
putting forth a set of principles and targets as regards the world order, the state has failed
to transform this potential into deeds. The reason is that China’s diplomacy has only
principles and goals, and lacks strategic planning and an agenda-setting capacity, or indeed
the will power to carry them out. In terms of diplomatic principles, the state is unable to
adjust its diplomacy according to changes in the international situation and China’s own
strength. Instead it limits itself to the philosophy of [Deng Xiaoping] of ‘hiding our capacities
and biding our time’. As a result of this China’s diplomacy has failed to reflect its increased
clout, which is demonstrated by the use of ‘firefighting’ and ‘stability-maintenance’ style
diplomacy in handling international affairs. This has worsened China’s international
situation and undermined the confidence of the Chinese people.

Grave Problem 10

Insufficient efforts in pushing political reform and promoting democracy

There is a long way to go before the ideal of returning power to the people. This is the
biggest and the most challenging problem. From the experience of modernisation in other
countries it is evident that the problem can’t be solved once for all. It should be done
methodically and with caution. However, the state should at least make some gesture to
show that the Party is sincere in its efforts to give people some hope, instead of dithering
when faced with difficulties. In the past decade, despite the Hu-Wen administration’s
emphasis on democracy, freedom, rule of the law and political reform, little progress has
been made regarding democratisation. In fact, the solution to all these problems lies with
the reform of the political system, and how profound political reform will be. So, the
government should be courageous and take a bold step to realise China’s political reform
and democracy.

One era is coming to an end, and another is beginning. For a variety of reasons, Hu and
Wen have failed to make positive progress in the above-mentioned areas. How their
successors will proceed in dealing with these problems will determine China’s peaceful rise
and the speed of its rise, and even whether its rise can continue.

For this reason we should feel a sense of crisis.

 ___________________

Related Material

Source
In Chinese: at Political China.
In English: at Chinese Elections and Governance.

Deng Yuwen on Weibo

http://www.weibo.com/u/1413513877
Deng’s own post of his three-part essay has been deleted. Although his name is not blocked,
the titles of his essays are.

Comments on Weibo
http://s.weibo.com/weibo/%25E9%2582%2593%25E8%2581%25BF%25E6%2596%2587&Refer=STopic_box

Mao Zedong, ‘On the Ten Great Relationships’

English: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-
5/mswv5_51.htm
Chinese: http://news.xinhuanet.com/ziliao/2004-12/30/content_2393996.htm

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