Foreign Affairs.
For the first time since 1992, the United States’ and China’s
political calendars are syncing up, with presidential elections in the
former and a leadership transition in the latter. But unlike in the
United States, where Mitt Romney would have had to
defeat President Barack Obama in a national election to win the White
House, Xi Jinping, who is expected to take office as China’s next
president this month, will not face an open contest against the
incumbent, Hu Jintao. If the Chinese people were allowed such a choice,
however, they would likely ask the perennial question of U.S. presidential elections since the time of Ronald Reagan, albeit in a slightly modified form: Are you better off now than you were ten years ago?
Despite all that is made of China’s spectacular rise, the numbers
show that many people in China would likely answer no. As Hu prepares to
leave office, China is prosperous but staggeringly unequal, and strong
but profoundly insecure. Indeed, in recent years, China has experienced
intensifying clashes between bottom-up demands for social equality,
individual freedoms, and environmental stewardship and the Chinese
Communist Party’s aggressive defense of the status quo. On the whole, Hu
and his premier, Wen Jiabao, are handing the new Xi administration an
economic legacy that is far from stellar and a society that is shakier
than the one they inherited. More important, they are leaving behind a
political environment that is likely more corrupt and stifling than the
relatively entrepreneurial and liberal era of the 1990s. This is in part
because the government’s role in the economy grew, which meant that
those who possessed political power could translate it into financial
gain. Meanwhile, those lacking political connections -- the vast
majority of Chinese -- saw their economic opportunities shrink as money
flowed toward the political classes.
