I do have the concerns for increasing disparity between haves and have-nots. Taking into the consideration of TV and internet bars in small towns are spreading like wild fire in countryside.

“It has to grow at a minimum of 8 percent a year or it will explode, because it will have so much unemployment and discontent, the population will erupt.”
Says Nayan Chanda, editor of Yale Global online

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Right now there is a great disparity between the proverbial haves and the have nots, though the have nots seem to have been given just enough to keep them from revolting, while the haves have gotten a lot more than they ever had before. And they seem to be getting more and more everyday. Close affiliation – either through membership or payoffs – with the Party seems to be the recipe one still needs to follow in order to get more Deng-ishly “glorious.” It has been a great and delicate balancing act that the Party has been treading. Urban incomes have risen at a greater rate than the countryside incomes, though that is neither new nor surprising. There is just so much to go around.

The more disturbing pattern seems to be as it has always been: that the rich are getting much richer while the poor, though not quite as poor as they were before, are acutely more aware of the imbalance. Televisions are in every village, allowing the inconsistencies to be even more visible than they were two decades ago. I wonder what this will eventually lead to? Corruption in the 70s and 80s has not gone away, and, in fact, it can probably be argued that since there is quite a bit more money in the game, corruption is probably even worse.

With the number of college graduates increasing as the number of jobs dramatically decrease, I wonder if this will lead to a situation like we saw in the late 80s? A lot of hardworking Chinese have spent a lot of money to ensure that their children are educated and in the game. But what happens when the game folds and those students find themselves back in the villages wondering how to pay their college debt. Or, more disturbing to the government, what happens when those educated unemployed, who have lost their countryside skills, find themselves in city ghettos wondering why they can’t find the kinds of jobs they’ve been educated for. Seems to me that this could be the start of something potentially bigger than we saw twenty years ago.

I agree with what I perceive to be your assessment: that economics had a lot more to do with it than the desire of a group of students to blissfully dance around the goddess of democracy. Sentimentality can only go so far; that would never have been enough to carry the movement as far as it went.

The bigger questions are: “What’s next?” and “What will the transition look like?” The answer is not to be found in imperial fiat. That rarely works, and never in situations where economic gaps are significantly widening. The Center can say, “We must do this,” but when all the Radials have their own myopic agendas, the ones who always get screwed are the ones who have the least. And if something like 1989 were to happen again, it would not be confined to Tian’anmen and Beijing.

Traditionally, the economists have paid attention on the regional difference of the income inequality in China. There are plenty of inequity evaluation studies since 1978 for mainland China. However, another part of the inequality deserves consideration.

The first of many inflections appeared in summer 1988 since the 1949. While general public did not, and still does not take notice of the statistics of China, they surely felt the pain of higher prices of life essentials. The very next year, a number of reasons trigged the Tiananmen Square conflict; the most important factor has been neglected by many who are considered China experts.

There also seems to be humanity in whoever governs the tank’s forward movement as they cannot bring themselves to crush this would-be martyr. Can it be that they feel what I feel on seeing this man standing there decrying the lack of humanity. And finally, the courage of those who run out and pull that Tank Man out of harm’s way, a further display of humanity.

Concerning heroes, Jeff Widener, the photographer, strikes me as a hero once I became familiar with his story of getting into China, getting to Tiananmen Square, securing the photograph and escaping with it.

Still, my thoughts always return to the Tank Man, his utter disgruntlement. It is a fascinating contrast, to interrupt his shopping to become this great thing, a symbol that begs us to end the madness and implores us to finally act humane.