Opinion The costs of order

Yet,even with no organised opposition challenging its rule and the majority of the Chinese population apparently content with their ever-rising standard of living,the Chinese Communist Party simply cannot relax. It devotes an inordinate amount of money and manpower to the defence and preservation of its political monopoly. Based on official statistics,the expenditures on “domestic stability maintenance” (mostly law enforcement) last year amounted to slightly over $100 billion,exceeding the national defence budget. While this figure strikes many inside China as excessive,it actually is not because in most countries law enforcement spending typically is greater than the national defence budget (the only exception is the United States,which spends more on national defence than law enforcement).

The trouble with China,of course,is that it is no ordinary country. In all likelihood,official expenditures on the so-called domestic stability maintenance operations vastly understate the actual amount spent on protecting the regime security of the Communist Party and social peace. For example,it is unlikely that the official numbers include off-the-book spending on Internet censorship. The budget for China’s domestic secret police is most likely classified,hence excluded from the official data. Local governments in China routinely spend considerable amounts of money to maintain social stability. Their expenditures range from paying retirees a modest stipend to serve as members of neighbourhood surveillance teams to appeasing protestors with cash compensations. On average,more than 100,000 mass protests occur in China each year. Even a small percentage of them require local governments to offer cash compensations in order to resolve the disputes,and the sum can add up very quickly. The official expenditure data may not include additional spending on security operations in China’s restive border regions,such as Xinjiang and Tibet,where ethnic tensions have risen dramatically the past few years,requiring the central government to deploy additional security forces and increase budgetary outlays for these areas.

The non-monetary costs of maintaining social stability,though impossible to measure,are likely to be significant as well. Given the frequency of riots,protests and social disturbances,local officials must devote a great deal of time to putting out such fires,getting distracted from their other responsibilities. In addition,because social and political protests tend to occur on sensitive dates,such as October 1 (the National Day),June 4 (the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989),the convening of the national parliament in mid-March,and the visits by top Western leaders to China,Beijing mobilises its entire bureaucracy to beef up security measures,such as posting additional security guards outside government offices,deploying more policemen and paramilitary forces in major cities,and imposing tighter restrictions on the media and civil society.

Finally,such stability-enhancing measures are costly in terms of China’s international image. Despite its arrival as a global economic powerhouse,China’s behaviour at home has been a constant source of controversy in the eyes of the international community. Heavy-handed tactics against dissidents,human rights activists and ethnic minorities make Beijing look insecure,repressive,and unattractive. Without doubt,locking up Liu Xiaobo,China’s Nobel peace prize laureate,in jail has done inestimable damage to its international image.

The bad news for Beijing is that the sources of instability in China are structural and are certain to persist. Obviously,the lack of democracy and the rule of law not only denies the Communist Party fundamental political legitimacy,but also deprives the Chinese government several possible institutional channels for managing the conflict between the Chinese state and society. At the moment,aggrieved Chinese citizens have no effective legal recourse to fight official abuse of power and injustice,leaving mass protest and riots the only available options. Ethnic tensions are also unlikely to abate,since the Chinese government has opted for a strategy that combines accelerated economic development with enhanced political control in unstable regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet. If anything,this strategy temporarily rules out a lasting political solution (which will be based on respect for local autonomy and cultural rights) and will probably fuel even more radical separatist sentiments. China’s economic development model is generating its own destabilising dynamics as well. Because of its inadequate social safety nets,regressive social and tax policies and preferences for state-owned enterprises,the current Chinese model of development is rapidly expanding the income gap. Even top Chinese leaders publicly admit this is China’s most serious challenge in the years ahead.

The high costs of maintaining social stability and defending the Communist Party’s monopoly of power have ramifications for India. While India may lack China’s world-class infrastructure,it has a degree of systemic political resilience China simply cannot match. Political leaders in India may have to devote considerable resources to fighting terrorism,Maoist insurgency and ethnic separatism,but none of them are worried about getting overthrown by their own people. The kind of politically-inspired mass riots and protests that occur in China daily,I am told,simply do not happen in India. Courts and elections provide better alternatives.

In the long term,China’s capacity to project power abroad will be severely constrained by its domestic political security needs. In comparison,India will be saddled with a much lighter burden. So in handicapping which country will do better in the coming decades,let us take into account the high costs of maintaining social stability in China.

The writer is a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont,California
express@expressindia.com