As China approaches its 60th national day this month, it has begun obsessing over “harmony”. A nervous state has begun an aggressive hot-pursuit of harmony with a series of crackdowns on “troublemakers” for “subverting state power”. The old Dengist slogan — “stability is the overriding priority” — has made something of a comeback, with “stability preservation officers” being appointed to act as the eyes and ears of the government. But harmony is proving to be a fast-moving target, difficult to pin down; and the obsession is fraying state-society relations like never before. As it grapples with this policy-induced crisis, the question before China is: can harmony be saved from itself?

The Chinese characterisation of harmony has always been an odd compact between state and society. But the compact has held together, albeit with some unusual experiments in negotiating social space. For instance, stringent rules make it extraordinarily difficult for nonprofits to register with the Internal Affairs Bureau. Several organisations in China thus end up registering themselves as for-profit companies. Interestingly, there has been a fair degree of official tolerance for this. There are good reasons why. It is being acknowledged that conceding an increasing sphere of public autonomy will be in the government’s enlightened self-interest. Thus, the Sixth Plenum of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party in 2006 drew a direct correlation between continued prosperity and the need for a “democratic society under the rule of law”. All these seemed to augur well for an expanding sphere of public action and greater transparency in the decision-making process. Or so one thought.

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