China has long been regarded as one of the world’s biggest economy driver. Its significant role in world affairs has been manifested in Japan’s unsuccessful bid for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council due to China’s strong protest. Moreover, it is now the world’s fourth largest economy, bigger than Italy, France and Britain. However, the price for these achievements seems to be too high for many Chinese to accept. Corruptions, environmental degradation and home eviction often lead to protests. According to a Newsweek article, “Line of Defense”, 74000 major protests took place last year up from 58000 in 2003. I think this clearly shows that the central government has not paid sufficient attention to the poorer sector of the population and it has to tighten its control over provinces that are far away from Beijing, like provinces in southern part of China.

Whenever land is required for a project, be it state-run, be it private, the authorities would coerce farmers to give up the land that they survive on. Compensations given are usually disproportionate. The exploitation of the poor can also be clearly reflected in China’s mining industry. Due to high energy demand, workers are often forced to work overtime for unreasonably low wage. According to an article in Lian He Zao Bao, transporting a big wicker basket of raw coal on shoulder from the mine to the refinery, which is about one kilometers away, will only earn the miner one yuan, equivalent to twenty cents in Singapore currency. That is not all; the working environment in China’s coal mining industry has been graded as the most dangerous one on the Earth, with most numbers of casualties per year. In the light of all these unfair treatments, we can understand why there are so many protests occurring in different parts of China. What protestors want is justice and fair treatment, but what they face in the end is often harsh repression. I think the central government should divert some of their attention to farmers and workers from rural areas, ensuring that the national wealth is well distributed. Also, it has to launch harsher policies in order to effectively and efficiently bring down corruption. All these, I believe, would help to reduce protests and hence the level of social unrest in the nation. In addition, the central government has to tighten its control over its provinces. Some governors take situations into their own hands by hiring local thugs to deal with protestors, leading to heavy deaths and casualties. The central government is now busy making planning for greater economic development; thus, it may pay little attention to riots that are isolated and of small scale. It has given power to local governors to handle the situations, however, many are doing so in a violent manner. The notorious Taishi scandal in Guangdong province is an example. As a result, I believe that the government should divert some of its energy to developing a desirable common policy to deal with protests. It should not allow local governors to harshly crack down on protestors, as reverse effect may be yielded. China is still dominantly agricultural. Farmers still constitute the majority of the population. If they were to revolt, what China has achieved would be destroyed and all its effort to become the world’s biggest economy would be in vain. Taking Indonesia for instance, the reason why it makes little achievement in its economic performance is because there are too many demonstrations happening every year, which severely hinder its development plans despite the fact that it has a reservoir of raw materials. Currently, the protests in China may be isolated and of small scale, but there is high possibility that coordinated demonstrations may occur if the government refuses to pay attention to the problems. The effective example would be the coordinated demonstrations against Japan’s publication of its new history textbook in 2005.