How to Look at China - New York Times

How to Look at China - New York TimesNovember 9, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist
How to Look at China
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Tiger Leaping Gorge, China

My friend Nayan Chanda, the editor of YaleGlobal magazine and a longtime reporter in Asia, recently shared with me a conversation he'd had with an Asian diplomat regarding India and China: India, he said, always looks as if it is boiling on the surface, but underneath it is very stable because of a 50-year-old democratic foundation. China looks very stable on the surface, but underneath it is actually boiling - an overheated economy under a tightly sealed political lid.

There is a lot to that, but what's most interesting is where China is boiling today. Ever since the student uprising in 1989, we in America have tended to look at China through the prism of Tiananmen, thinking that the main drama there is a struggle pitting freedom-seeking students and intellectuals against a hard-line Communist Party. There is still truth in that perspective, but it is not the most revealing lens through which to look at China anymore. A lot of those Tiananmen students have gotten M.B.A.'s, dropped out of politics and gone to work for multinationals.

Today, the most relevant fault line in China is Tiger Leaping Gorge, a spectacular geological site in Western China along the Yangtze River, and one of the deepest gorges in the world. With its thunderous rushing waters cutting through mountains, it is certainly one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. I visited there with my camera, but I also visited with some local villagers with my notebook.

These farmers are angry that plans are being made to dam the Yangtze River, flood Tiger Leaping Gorge and force the relocation of thousands of farmers and villagers. And they are getting vocal, learning about their legal options and pressing local officials to reconsider how the dam will be built. Getting political is not a hobby for these farmers. It is a necessity.

And similar dramas of necessity are being played out all over the Chinese countryside today by villagers who know that they are not fully participating in China's economic growth, but are being told that if they want to, they must accept dams or factories that will destroy their environment.

They don't like this deal, but China's rigid political system leaves these farmers, who are still the majority in China today, with few legal options for fighting it. That helps explain why China's official media reported that in 1993 some 10,000 incidents of social unrest took place in China. Last year there were 74,000.

This is the political lens to watch China through today. How China's ruling Communist Party manages the environmental, social, economic and political tensions converging on such places as Tiger Leaping Gorge - not Tiananmen Square - will be the most important story determining China's near-term political stability.

Listen to China's deputy minister of the environment, Pan Yue, in his stunning March 7 interview with Der Spiegel: "Our raw materials are scarce, we don't have enough land, and our population is constantly growing. Currently, there are 1.3 billion people living in China; that's twice as many as 50 years ago. In 2020, there will be 1.5 billion people in China. Cities are growing, but desert areas are expanding at the same time; habitable and usable land has been halved over the past 50 years. ... [China's G.D.P. miracle] will end soon because the environment can no longer keep pace. ... Half of the water in our seven largest rivers is completely useless. ... One-third of the urban population is breathing polluted air. ...

"We are convinced that a prospering economy automatically goes hand in hand with political stability. And I think that's a major blunder. ... If the gap between the poor and the rich widens, then regions within China and the society as a whole will become unstable. If our democracy and our legal system lag behind the overall economic development, various groups in the population won't be able to protect their own interests."

The drama of Tiger Leaping Gorge is not as easy to follow as a single man standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen. It involves the complex interactions among the Chinese countryside, the N.G.O.'s and local organizations working there, the developers looking to build there, and a still heavy-handed Communist Party.

But somewhere in this swirl of forces is where China's future stability is going to be shaped - or not. No wonder China's leaders have made building a "harmonious society" central to their next five-year plan. Wish them well, because how they do will affect everything from the air you breathe to the clothes you wear and the interest on your mortgage.

Maureen Dowd is on a book tour.