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Wukan in Context The Arab Spring...followed by the Bersih 2.0 movement in Malaysia...followed by the Indignado movement in Spain.. followed by the Occupy Protests in the United States... followed by the protests against electoral malpractice and more in Russia ...and now protests in the Wukan village in China? It is easy to make a comparative assessment of the incidents in Wukan village in Guandong province in China with the other protests against power in various parts of the world and say that this is just a re-enactment against authority. Authority could be differentiated - be it dictatorship in the Arab world, oligarchy in Malaysia, two-party duopoly in Spain, financial capital and plutocracy in the United States, atypical Kremlinology of the Putin variety in Russia, but there are commonalities - the pursuit of policies that are skewed in the interests of capitalists, speculators, the rich and against common people. So is Wukan on similar lines? In the case of the Wukan protests - directed at local communist party and government officials over a land deal - it seems that the higher leadership of the Communist Party effected an immediate reprisal over corrupt officials in accordance with the villagers’ wishes. The controversial land deal has also been cancelled. It seems to be a case of the ruling party pre-empting the burgeoning of the protests against its authority in general. But questions arise if this can be replicated elsewhere and whether the apparatuses of the Communist Party ruled state are democratic and robust enough to address peoples' concerns about displacement and loss of livelihoods. This article in the Diplomat has an interesting drift - the party’s attempts to bring about a reasonable denouement in favour of the aggrieved people in Wukan cannot be generalised, as the outcomes in Wukan were more due to inner party dynamics. Wang Yang, the secretary of the Guandong provincial committee of the CPC, played a vital role in the peaceful outcome in Wukan, by sympathizing with the protesting villagers. This solidified his claims to be incorporated in the CPC’s politburo standing committee in the forthcoming Congress. Other high profile CPC leaders like Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai have also adopted a similar route towards acquiring popularity. He is credited for launching a serious crackdown on organised crime in Chongqing in 2009, arresting over 2000 gangsters. Wang Yang was Bo Xilai’s predecessor in Chongqing. But protests in China are rising. There is a lot of discontent with the model of growth in China, which while bringing economic prosperity during the reform period, has also involved rising inequality among social classes and between urban and rural areas. Thousands of popular protests take place in China every year, mostly against land grab by corrupted party officials. Real estate is a major component of China’s growth story, and there is widespread apprehension about a real estate bubble. To maintain its legitimacy, the CPC often punishes its own party officials in order to distance itself from corruption. For instance, Chen Liangyu was dismissed as party secretary of the Shanghai municipal committee in 2006 and jailed for his involvement in siphoning off money from the social security fund. Xi Jinping, who took over as the Shanghai party chief following the scandal, went on to become a Politburo Standing Committee member and is expected to succeed Hu Jintao as Party chief and head of state later this year. Earlier, in 1995, Beijing mayor Chen Xitong was also dismissed and jailed for corruption. But skeptics maintain that these punishments merely amount to scratching the surface. While the Communist Party seems to be cognisant about the problems of corruption and rising discontent against land grab (http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90882/7693306.html ), it still remains to be seen if there would be a definite shift in the policies of the CPC and the Chinese government - from an export driven, state capitalist model of growth to a truer socialist vision as its Constitution claims. And whether indeed there is a truer democratisation within the Communist party as it is besieged by complaints of sleaze and graft at various levels of leadership. _____________________________________________________ Best A. Mani -- A. Mani CU, ASL, CLC, AMS, CMS http://www.logicamani.co.cc _______________________________________________ ILUGC Mailing List: http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
