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By Root 543 0

In Tianjin, 54 percent of the urban households below the minimum standard of living were those of laid-off workers; nearly 80 percent of them had trouble making ends meet.170 A survey of 6,660 urban families with laid-off workers in Liaoning in 1998 found that families with two laid-off workers accounted for a third of all households below the minimum standard of living.171 As expected, surveys also found, among laid-off workers, rising frustration and propensity to participate in collective protest. In 1999, 70 percent of the laid-off workers were dissatisfied with their lives. In 2000, 50 percent expressed dissatisfaction with their lives.172 In a survey of 1,127 laid-off workers in Changchun in late 1998, a third said that they would “take to the streets” to protest against “serious corruption”; another third said that they would do so if they lacked food and clothing, and 18 percent said that they would resort to collective protest if they could not afford medical care. Three-quarters of them sympathized with workers staging collective demonstrations, but only 14 percent expressed willingness to take part in them.173

Nevertheless, the incidence of worker protests increased rapidly.174 For example, the number of officially reported labor disputes rose 30 percent each year from 1997 to 2001.175 Such protests were especially frequent and contentious in the rustbelt in the northeast. In March 2002, for example, more than 20,000 laid-off workers from more than twenty factories participated in a week-long protest in the northern city of Liaoyang.176

The Institutional Breakdown

In the context of a closed political system, rising social frustrations tend to be amplified by the absence of pressure valves within the Chinese system. Even though several post-Mao political reforms—such as village elections, the strengthening of the legislative branch, and legal reform—were steps in the right direction, they have proved too limited and inadequate as institutional mechanisms for managing, let alone resolving, state-society tensions. Under the current Chinese system of redressing social grievances, individuals have access to four channels: offices in various government bureaucracies that handle “letters and visits” (xinfang); administrative litigation; the local and national People’s Congress system; and the media. None of these mechanisms works well in addressing social grievances.

Although the Chinese media have become more aggressive in exposing corruption and covering abuse of power by local government officials, they remain under the control of the CCP and fall far short of becoming an effective resource that ordinary citizens can depend on in airing their discontent or seeking to rally public support. Occasionally, coverage by muckraking publications such as Nanfang zhoumo (Southern Weekend), Zhonguo qingnianbao (Chinese Youth Daily), and Nanfang dushibao (Southern Metropolitan News)could cause a public outcry and force the central government to take remedial actions. But such occurrences are infrequent and rare. Of course, reporters and editors must walk a fine line between defending aggrieved individuals and groups and risking retaliation by local officials. The case of Nanfang dushibao is instructive. After exposing the beating death of a college graduate wrongfully detained as a vagrant in Guangzhou and the cover-up of the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in the city in 2003, the paper’s two top editors were accused and later convicted of taking bribes by local authorities.

The role of the local and national People’s Congress in resolving social grievances remains limited as well. The deputies to these bodies are selected by the CCP and lack independence and power. Their intervention on behalf of aggrieved citizens is often ineffective. Chinese courts have not demonstrated their capacity to resolve state-social conflict, either. The only legal recourse for citizens victimized by local authorities is administrative litigation, which allows ordinary citizens and economic entities to sue