China boosts spending on welfare—and on internal security, too

The truncheon budget

China's security state - The truncheon budget | Asia | The Economist

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 AMONG the misleading and ill-explained details that, as usual, spiced up China's annual budget, unveiled on March 5th, were some especially eye-catching numbers for security. The surprise was not just that China's military budget had resumed double-digit growth after a one-year hiatus, but that spending on internal security was higher and growing even faster. The state sees an abundance of threats within.

The risk that turmoil in the Middle East will spread to China is one of them, though the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, studiously avoided mentioning events there in his two-hour address to the country's legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC). Mr Wen did, however, speak of the need to “solve problems that cause great resentment among the masses”, such as the illegal demolition of housing and the forced appropriation of farmland. 

The NPC session, an annual rubber-stamp affair lasting a few days, was full of measures intended as crowd-pleasers. Central-government spending on education, health care and social security is to increase by more than 16%, and on subsidised housing by more than a third. Two days before the session began, Chinese media published a surprising survey indicating that only 6% of citizens felt happy. More welfare spending, perhaps, is to keep unhappy people off the streets. 

 Officials are less eager to draw attention to their preferred option for keeping the peace, namely beefing up security. The budget presented to the NPC calls for spending of 624 billion yuan ($95 billion) this year on items related to law and order, 13.8% more than in 2010. Military spending is to increase by 12.7%, to 601.1 billion yuan. This follows an unexpected easing of its growth last year to 7.5%. But for a second consecutive year it will be less than the outlay on internal security.

The authorities' horrified response to anonymous calls on the internet for a “jasmine revolution” in China will add to the cost of policing. For three Sundays in a row central areas of several Chinese cities have been saturated with uniformed and plainclothes officers. They have staked out shopping streets where the internet messages have urged protesters to “stroll” (a euphemism often used in China for demonstrating, which the police hardly ever permit). The messages have said these protests, which have yet to materialise, should continue every Sunday indefinitely. The police clearly worry that if they scale back their deployments people will converge at the appointed places. 

A day after the latest such security operation, the foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, blandly told journalists that he had noticed no kind of tension in China. He also denied that police had beaten foreign journalists trying to report in the designated areas, even though one had been kicked and hit by goons and others roughed up less severely in full view of uniformed officers. The authorities have decided to rescind—at least partially—their 2007 decision to give foreign correspondents freer rein. Now correspondents “must apply for approval” to conduct interviews in Beijing. 

Antagonism towards the foreign press, and a sweeping round-up of Chinese dissidents, could also signal concerns about tension within the leadership as it prepares to hand over power to a younger generation next year. Power struggles in China have a habit of going hand-in-hand with street protests (the Tiananmen Square unrest in 1989 broke out amid fierce confrontation at the top). On March 5th-6th the state media, which had kept silent about the “strolls”, published editorials stridently denouncing them. The Beijing Daily called for “constant vigilance against these people with ulterior motives” who wanted to “throw China into turmoil”. Echoes of hardline language at the time of Tiananmen. 

Antagonism towards the foreign press, and a sweeping round-up of Chinese dissidents, could also signal concerns about tension within the leadership as it prepares to hand over power to a younger generation next year. Power struggles in China have a habit of going hand-in-hand with street protests (the Tiananmen Square unrest in 1989 broke out amid fierce confrontation at the top). On March 5th-6th the state media, which had kept silent about the “strolls”, published editorials stridently denouncing them. The Beijing Daily called for “constant vigilance against these people with ulterior motives” who wanted to “throw China into turmoil”. Echoes of hardline language at the time of Tiananmen.

A rare criticism of the government's approach appeared this week on the website of the state-run news agency, Xinhua, in an article by a scholar in Singapore. China, it said, would enhance its stability far more if it were to turn its “colossal expenses on stability maintenance” to improving people's livelihoods instead. The leadership is beefing up spending on both, but seems not to know which one will work better. 

China's security state

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The truncheon budget

China boosts spending on welfare—and on internal security, too

Asia March 12th 2011

From the March 12th 2011 edition

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