In China, the divide between rich and poor is greater than before the peasant-led revolution that brought the Communist Party to power in 1949. Last month, China's government announced that the income gap had widened in the first three months of the year, with the richest 10 percent of the population controlling 45 percent of the country's wealth and the poorest 10th holding little more than 1 percent, according to the official New China News Agency.
In Beijing, concern mounts that the rural poor are falling so far behind as to challenge the legitimacy of the party. Demonstrations have become near-daily occurrences as farmers protest loss of land to development and excessive taxation. In response, the central government has rolled back taxes on peasants.
China's response to this internal problem will be the driver for its relationship with the US. The more torn the Communist leadership becomes over the pros and cons of its integration into a capitalist global economic order, the more likely it is that they will engage in erratic and potentially self-destructive behaviour.
Think about the various groups in China (military, economic, peasants, coastal elite, party supporters) acting in opposition to one another, largely so that each can secure a future for its own interests. This infighting may see an economic elite offering concessions to US businesses, attempting to calm ruffled feathers. The military, meanwhile, would continue to increase its spending exponentially in the belief that a war is on the horizon. Peasants would demand a change in the political and economic order, something that liberals would interpret as a move away from Communist orthodoxy, while the military and party would see as a clear signal for a re-invigorated Maoist nation.
Continue to add tension, maybe a provocative claim from a Taiwanese leader, for example, and China explode with the passions of 1 billion souls. The US is an easy scapegoat in this scenario. After all, who brought these problems into China in the first place? Who brought factories and marketing, and exporting, and social alienation and and and...
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