THREE years after the bloody events of Tiananmen it is often, on the other hand, power- less in the depths of country, and is frequently thwarted by provincial
ce moreover enjoys the support of Deng and many other top cadres.
Post-1989 China has continued to open up economically to the outside world. Furthermore it has successfully undertaken an aggressive policy of exporting low technology goods -exports doubled between 1985 and 1990, at a time when imports were sharply cut by the austerity policy.
More striking still, the trade balance was in the black in 1990 and 1991 and China is, after Japan, the country with the biggest surplus in trade with the United States (+$11.5bn in 1990). This is a much more serious source of tension with the US lations, constituting a pect for US economic power and big busi-
This policy of taking over the low tech crannies vacated by countries like Singapore, was first proposed by Zhao Ziyang, the former reformist secretary of the CCP ousted in
1989; it thus his line. Even more worrying for Li Peng is the fact that most of the economic growth is provided by the nonstate sector companies and the cooperative sector (which are in fact more or less privatized).
While the written projects for economic development, such as the 1991-95 five-year plan, were the result of laborious compromises between conservatives and reformers, the policies actually put into practice have tended towards an extension of reform and towards the progressive entry of China into the world capitalist economy, and thus subordination to its logic. Deng himself recently made a self-criticism for not having allowed the great industrial centre of Shanghai to earlier become a site of capitalist activity (a "special economic zone") capable of attracting foreign capital.
### Pathetic struggle
While the conservatives continue their somewhat pathetic struggle to hold back an apparently irresistible tide, there is an absence of autonomous activity within society.
The regime has not only won economic victories —which, however fragile, are precious for this profoundly discredited regime. It has also succeeded in breaking or diverting challenges to its rule. Social problems, the break down of social discipline, zones of insecurity in both town and country, worker resistance in the enterprises and intellectual disaffection continue, but there is no organized challenge. Furthermore, it seems that clandestine activity is not widespread.
This is the period of everyone for themselves. Some critics have turned to business, others are simply discouraged. The intellectuals are turning away from politics as their forebears did after the disastrous beginnings of the first republic of 1912. Nor are there as yet any signs of worker selforganization.
There remains a considerable gulf between the energy of worker resistance at the rank-and-file level, a resistance which often has a very narrow focus, and the absence of any significant independent worker organization, whether as trade unions or in other forms. It is true that any efforts in this direction meet with swift and ferocious repression of a much more systematic kind than that employed against intellectuals.
This level of control of the situation is certainly temporary, but it has provided a welcome respite for a regime that looked on its last legs and ready to disappear beneath general opprobrium. The cities remain rebellious but the agitation there is economic, resulting from the population's various efforts to make ends meet. A select few meanwhile are able to profit from the pro-business atmosphere; in today's China one moves quickly from rebellion to the passion for business,
CHINA from the exaltation of the mission of the intellectuals to praising the role of the businessman.
The countryside meanwhile is relieved by the failure of the attempts at resocialization (nobody dares use the term recollectivization any more).
Rural China has benefited significantly from a substantial rise in agricultural prices, a record harvest and an upturn in non-agricultural activity.
The significant rural small industrial sector, which had suffered under the post-1988 austerity policy, benefited from its subsequent relaxation. Those in the countryside have gained a degree of economic independence and freedom to run their own day-to-day affairs;
on the other hand, they do not challenge the regime.
This consent without approval, which is not without calculation, remains the regime's biggest strength; the political passivity of the three quarters of the country's population who live in the rural areas, and fear of instability are the regime's major weapons, far more in any case, is than the army, which, largely composed of conscripts from the countryside.
Sources of instability
All this does not mean that the vista for the regime is entirely rosy. There are still many sources of instability in the country.
Demographic, as is being constantly emphasized both inside and outside-
China.
Economic - inflation is taking off again (5 to 6% this year and rising)
and a mixed economy made up of a parasitic capitalism and a subsidized state sector which are always out of balance.
Social - with ever increasing inequality in this vast country where the social and geographical margins have been left to rot, provoking growing tensions with the national minorities which are strongly present on the periphery.
And political — with the unending war of succession which blocks off the search for new political openings and must give rise to a great unknown that
June 8, 1992 •
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