Millions of
jobless in China a looming threat to Xi Jinping
As Chinese leaders prepare to lay out their
economic plans at Friday's National People's Congress, they haven't confronted
unemployment on this scale since the 1990s.
Bloomberg News
May 22, 2020 – 12.00am
The
Pearl River Delta industrial belt has served as one of China’s most important
growth engines since the Communist Party opened the economy four decades
ago, propelling its rise to become one of the world’s leading
powers.
But now
in Guangdong, a southern coastal province that alone would stand as one of
Asia’s top five economies, the situation is getting dire in some
labour-intensive sectors that are more China’s past than future. In the dank
back alleys of Dongguan, a metropolis with about as many people as New York
City, small textile makers are struggling to survive. Thousands of migrant
workers have already headed back to China’s poorer interior.
“You
can see around here, nine out of 10 textile workshops have already shut down,”
the owner of one shop, who gave his surname as Long, said last week over the
sound of whirring sewing machines. His 10 remaining employees have seen their
take-home pay cut in half due to long idle periods. “Their income levels have
returned to what they were 10 years ago,” Long’s wife said.
The
widespread struggle to earn cash risks turning into a big political problem for Chinese President Xi Jinping.
While the authoritarian state doesn’t hold democratic elections, it still faces
strong internal pressures to deliver economic gains to the nation’s 1.4 billion
people. And Xi in particular has zeroed in on income levels as a key source of
its overall legitimacy to govern.
In a
December 31 speech, Xi said 2020 would mark a “milestone” as China finishes
“building a moderately prosperous society”. As originally envisaged, that involved
doubling per capita income by 2020 from 2010 levels, doubling gross domestic
product and eliminating poverty. Xi has called those goals “a solemn promise
our party has made to the people and to the history”.
Already
challenged by the long economic slowdown and the US-China trade war, those
goals are suddenly being pushed out of reach by the coronavirus pandemic. That
reality is expected to be clear this week at the annual meeting of the
legislature, the biggest political event of the year in China: Xi’s government may avoid giving a numerical growth target for the
first time in decades as the world’s second-largest economy
braces for its worst performance in the post-Mao era.
Chinese President Xi Jinping had promised 2020 would be a
"milestone" year in achieving prosperity. AP
“This
has put great pressure on Xi, who has personally advocated such goals under his
watch,” says Gu Su, a professor of philosophy and law at Nanjing University.
“Anybody with basic economic knowledge knows they’re not viable.”
Xi now
faces a dilemma, Gu says: ignoring the promise would be equivalent to saying
that the Communist Party had failed, while proclaiming victory would only rile
up a seething middle class that is increasingly venting frustration
online. Anger over the initial response
earlier this year – amplified by the death of a doctor who was reprimanded for
speaking out about the virus – propelled “I want freedom of speech” to become
the top-trending hashtag on Weibo.
Communist
Party officials have sounded the alarm. In a nationwide teleconference on May
9, Public Security Minister Zhao Kezhi said the government should prioritise
risks to China’s “political security”. He called on law enforcement to pay
particular attention to “destabilising factors” stemming from the economic
downturn and the pandemic.
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While Xi has invested heavily in
tools to quash political dissidents, the party has frequently seen local
protests erupt over bread-and-butter issues such as labour disputes, investment
fraud and environmental disasters. Recently pockets of unrest have emerged in
and around Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak.
Job losses may have exceeded 50
million and the real unemployment rate could have hit 12 per cent in March.
— BNP Paripas
Accounting for migrant workers who couldn’t travel to
cities, job losses may have exceeded 50 million and the real unemployment rate
could have hit 12 per cent in March, according to BNP Paribas. As many as 130
million people were either out of work or furloughed in the first quarter.
What’s worse, only a small fraction of those are actually
claiming welfare benefits, due to a cumbersome application process and the
meagre amount of funds available.
China hasn’t confronted unemployment on this scale since
1990, when layoffs at state-owned enterprises led to protests and a spike in violent
crime. Back then, the country quickly recovered as a wave of globalisation
allowed it to tap into a booming US economy that fed demand for Chinese goods.
Threats
to foreign trade
The situation now is very different.
Growth was already slowing as the government sought to reduce debt, and US
President Donald Trump targeted exporters in an unprecedented trade war.
Any hope of a recovery is partially dependent on how quickly
other world leaders are able to contain the virus and restart their economies.
Nearly 200 million jobs in China – more than the entire working population of
the US – come from businesses connected to foreign trade, Minister of Commerce
Zhong Shan wrote in a recent article.
Now China’s most powerful leader in decades, Xi recognises
the risks facing him as he manoeuvres to extend his time in power beyond 2022,
after doing away with term limits. For months, he’s warned that the virus
might pose a risk to “social stability” in China.
His strategy so far has boiled down to three major tactics:
pump money into creating jobs, censor any dissenting views and redirect the
anger on the ground with an appeal to nationalism. A Politburo meeting last
Friday, in which Xi reviewed a draft of Premier Li Keqiang’s annual report to
the National People’s Congress, discussed measures to ensure social stability
and employment in the face of “grim and complex” economic challenges.
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So far at least, the strategy appears to be working on the
ground. Dozens of residents in Guangdong who spoke with Bloomberg reporters
last week were more focused on paying the next bill than hinting at a
revolution to come.
In the provincial capital of Guangzhou, small business
fronts were plastered with signs posted by renters seeking to sublet commercial
spaces or even sell their businesses altogether. In one area called the Yinggao
Trade City, most business units sat shuttered as international buyers stayed
away and overseas demand plummeted.
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Diego Lee, the marketing director of Kumpaya
Im & Export Agent, says business has been “terrible” in recent
months: “No one wants anything except masks.” Still, he doesn’t blame the
government, especially given the performance of the US and Europe in handling
the virus.
“If you look at the world, China has dealt with this better
than anyone,” he says. “You have to listen to all these parties, but we just
have one, and everyone has to do what it says.
"If you want to walk your dog and the government says
no, then you can’t walk your dog. You’ve lost some freedom, but you’re safe.”
In Dongguan, migrant workers who lost their jobs almost
overnight were feeling the brunt of the impact. One who gave his surname as Xie
lost his job at a furniture maker along with about 300 others – roughly 75 per
cent of the company’s employees.
“The virus came and there was no way to ship products out of
the country,” Xie says as he shelters from the drizzle outside an employment
agency near the city centre. He planned to head back to his home town in
neighbouring Hunan province once he could find 200 yuan ($43) to get home.
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Like others around him, Xie says he’s received no support or
subsidies from government during this period. Around him, the sense of
desperation is growing – a far cry from the optimism surrounding China’s
long-term plans to set up a high-tech export hub in the region.
A few doors down from Long’s textile workshop, an ecosystem
of businesses is struggling to stay afloat. A man in his 60s surnamed Cai,
whose company produces parts used in textile machines, says his business was
already reeling from the trade war before the pandemic hit. Now he’s on the
brink of bankruptcy.
“I’m not making enough to get by,” Cai says. “I don’t know
how much longer I can continue.”
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