China's Slavery Scandal Reveals Weaknesses in Governance

http://www.jamestown.org/china_brief/article.php?articleid=2373500

China's Slavery Scandal Reveals Weaknesses in Governance

China Brief
Volume 7, Issue 13 (June 27, 2007) | Download PDF Version

China's Slavery Scandal Reveals Weaknesses in Governance

By Willy Lam


The slave labor scandal in Shanxi Province has exposed not only the
near-barbarity of the "early stage of capitalism with Chinese
characteristics" but also the deep-seated administrative malaise in
the Chinese system. Since early this month, the nation has been
stunned by reports revealing that more than 1,000 "slaves," including
children and mentally retarded men, were working for long hours with
no pay in primitive brick-making kilns in hilly and remote counties in
the underdeveloped province. Investigations ordered by the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) leadership have discovered that massive
kidnapping and smuggling of children and youth-and their subsequent
enslavement in shoddy kilns, mines and other makeshift workshops-has
taken place in Shanxi during the past few years. While some 359
victims have so far been rescued, the shocking incident is a slap in
the face of the "putting people first" and "harmonious society" credos
of Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao.

More importantly, the scandal has revealed serious lapses in the
administrative ability of both Beijing and the provinces. In spite of
the fact that President Hu had launched a full-year, Maoist-style
ideological campaign in 2004 to "raise the governance capability of
party cadres and members," poor governance and corruption has
persisted throughout all levels of the Chinese government. Aside from
the slave labor scandal, for instance, the Shanxi provincial
government has also been responsible, in numerous cases, of the gross
mistreatment of urban workers and peasants. Thousands of mostly
migrant laborers from the outer provinces have died or sustained heavy
injuries in coal mines that lack rudimentary safety measures.
Additionally, little has been done regarding the upsurge in cancer
incidence rates in towns and villages: three among the country's ten
most polluted cities are located in Shanxi. Provincial authorities
have also turned a blind eye to collusion among local cadres, triad
bosses as well as private entrepreneurs, who are responsible for the
practice of human trafficking and slave labor.

Officials in the provincial capital of Taiyuan, however, have
apparently been successful in keeping eyesores from Beijing's knowledge
-largely through forbidding local media from reporting "negative
news." This is despite the fact that since taking power in late 2002,
Hu and Wen have made frequent inspection trips to the provinces;
ministries and departments in Beijing have also periodically sent
"work teams" to the localities to ferret out instances of corruption
or dereliction of duty. In early 2003, the Hu administration also
erected a 24-hour, fully computerized "advance warning" systems in
Beijing-in units including the Ministries of Public Security and State
Security-as well as in major cities to tackle tufa ("unexpected" or
emergency) events ranging from riots and acts of urban terrorism to
large-scale fires, traffic and mining accidents. These expensive
mechanisms, however, have not been functioning well. The brick-kiln
scandal came to light only after a few Henan Province papers and
websites earlier this month had carried the appeals of 400 Henan
parents who suspected that their sons had been kidnapped and "sold" to
slave masters in neighboring Shanxi (Dahe Forum, June 5).
Alarmed by the negative national and global impact of the slave story,
Hu and Wen, together with three other Politburo members, gave stern
instructions in mid-June on exterminating the practice immediately. It
is symptomatic of bureaucratic overlapping and the lack of clear-cut
division of labor among central units that "special work teams" were
dispatched to Shanxi simultaneously from four different departments-
the Ministry of Public Security; the State Prosecutor's Office; the
Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare; and the CCP-affiliated All-China
Federation of Trade Unions. It is also a testament to the indifferent
attitudes of regional bureaucrats that Shanxi officials started taking
action only upon receiving Hu and Wen's instructions. Shanxi Party
Secretary Zhang Baoshun said his province would "seriously implement
the important decrees of the central leaders." On June 18, the first
of the kiln bosses were arrested. A few days later, Shanxi Governor Yu
Youjun accepted responsibility for the law-and-order breakdown in his
province and tendered an apology to Shanxi residents, the central
leadership as well as the victims and their parents (People's Daily,
June 20; Wen Wei Po, June 22; Outlook Weekly, June 24).

In his self-criticism, Governor Yu admitted that the incident "has
exposed the low political aptitude and awareness of cadres in the
party, government and enterprises." He added, "They have not
established the concept of administration for the sake of the people."
Yu also told the hundreds of Chinese and foreign reporters who had
converged in Taiyuan that "Shanxi Province welcomes supervision from
the media" (People's Daily, June 22). There is widespread suspicion,
however, that Zhang, Yu and other senior cadres have consistently
muzzled the local media regarding mishaps in the province's tens of
thousands of illegally or improperly run mines, factories, kilns and
workshops. This is despite the fact that prior to his transfer to
Shanxi, Zhang had served as the Vice Director of Xinhua, China's
largest news agency.

A few of the more liberal local papers outside Shanxi have taken
advantage of the furor to report that despite the tough action taken
during the past fortnight, the basic problem of local officials
providing shelter to illicit mine and kiln owners has remained
unresolved. For example, at least two-thirds of the brick kilns in
remote counties in Shanxi remain unregistered. A State Council edict
last year forbidding officials from becoming investors in private coal
mines and other small-scale but lucrative businesses has also not been
fully observed (Chongqing Morning Post, June 20; Xiaoxiang Morning
Post, June 22). In other words, unless there is rigorous pressure from
the Politburo-or from the Hong Kong and overseas media-many more of
China's long-suffering migrant workers and uneducated children will
continue to be exploited in Shanxi.

The Shanxi disaster has proven particularly embarrassing for President
Hu because several of the recent regional scandals have taken place in
provinces run by potential Fifth Generation leaders from his own
Communist Youth League (CYL) Faction. Shanxi Party Secretary Zhang,
57, worked together with Hu in the CYL Central Committee when the
latter was CYL chief in the mid-1980s. Zhang was transferred to Shanxi
as acting governor in early 2004. While Governor Yu, as head of the
provincial government, has borne the brunt of the responsibility for
the "slave labor" incident, it is clear that Zhang's career has
suffered a setback. After all, Zhang's status as the top cadre in
Shanxi means he will have to shoulder at least some of the political
responsibility for the poor state of his populous province.

In similar fashion, the reputation of the Party Secretary of Jiangsu
Province, Li Yuanchao, has been dented by the uproar last month over
the dangerous water quality of Lake Tai, one of the most famous scenic
spots in southern China. Several lakeside towns, including the
historic city of Wuxi, have depended traditionally on the lake for
drinking water. Now Lake Tai is so laden with silt, chemicals and
metal particles that its water is blanketed with rancid, blue algae,
and it is not fit for even washing clothes. Li, 56, another CYL
stalwart, is even closer to President Hu than Shanxi's Zhang. The fast-
rising star from affluent Jiangsu has often been mentioned as a
possible successor to Hu.

Usually deemed an efficient administrator, Li did not pay a visit to
Lake Tai and Wuxi until the international press had reported a mass
exodus of residents from the boomtown. Yet, blue algae had first been
found in the lake in 1990; and the State Council had in 1998 earmarked
more than a billion yuan to purify the water. Jiangsu officials,
however, waited until Premier Wen personally instructed them to
improve the Lake Tai situation before issuing ironclad orders to a few
hundred chemical factories in the vicinity to close down. Unlike his
counterparts in Shanxi, however, neither Li nor any of his senior
colleagues bothered to offer an apology. Several lower-level
bureaucrats were instead made scapegoats and either fired or demoted
(Xinhua Daily, June 1; Associated Press, June 12; Ming Pao, June 25).

With the 17th CCP Congress approaching in October, the attention of
ordinary party members and the nation's intelligentsia alike is very
much focused on the dramatic deterioration of governance at both the
central and local levels. The Wen cabinet has failed, despite repeated
attempts since 2004, to tame the "irrational exuberance" in sectors
ranging from iron and steel to the real-estate market. The bull-run on
the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets has raised alarm bells not
only in Beijing and Hong Kong but also in London and Washington.
Incidents similar to those in Shanxi, Jiangsu and a host of both
wealthy as well as poor provinces have further called into doubt Hu's
ability to rein in regional cadres who have flagrantly run afoul of
central edicts. As the belated firing of former Shanghai Party
Secretary Chen Liangyu last September illustrated, the CCP leadership
has now resorted to questionable tactics, such as wielding the "anti-
corruption card," to get rid of particularly defiant "warlords."

In theory, large-scale personnel changes scheduled for the 17th
Congress should give the CCP leadership an opportunity to restructure
its ranks and induct not only younger but more capable and forward-
looking cadres into senior party and government slots. The
preoccupation of Hu, Wen and powerbrokers such as former president
Jiang Zemin and Vice-President Zeng Qinghong, however, is to maintain
an overall factional balance so as to attain "political harmony."
Given the party's ironclad hold over the army, the police and other
elements of China's formidable control apparatus, it is unlikely that
massive popular frustration, or demonstrations and riots, over
scandals such as those in Shanxi and Jiangsu can prod the powers-that-
be into considering real and thorough reform.

.

Quantcast