Lao Shi

An article in today’s NY Times on Guangzhou (capital of Guangdong Province in Southern China) reported on how the increase in the city’s wealth has brought with it a rise in crime, in particular from gangs on motorbikes. To fight the crime wave the city government has instituted a ban on motorbikes and motorcycles that begins on Monday, and also adopted a get tough on crime policy that encourages cops to shoot first and ask questions later, which has sparked debate even in the Chinese press about police brutality.

In general Chinese cities are safer than American, and Shanghai is considered very safe even by Chinese standards, but surely as China’s income gap widens its crime rates will go up. Draconian laws and a liberal use of the death penalty can only go so far.

Crime rates aside, the article’s last few paragraphs especially interested me:

Ye Cunhuan migrated to Guangzhou from Hubei Province in 2003 and opened four stores that sell motorized bicycles. These bikes, equipped with small motors, are popular for deliveries and also for people who cannot afford a motorcycle. Now, Ms. Ye has had to close two stores and is facing ruin.
“This has been fatal to my business,” she said.
She has responded by filing a lawsuit that claims the ban violates a national law that establishes the legality of motorcycles and motorized bicycles. The case was heard last Monday, and she expects a verdict by March. Ms. Ye scoffed at the idea that criminals used motorized bicycles, given their low rate of speed, and characterized the ban as an act of discrimination against migrants and others with less money.
“They don’t want to see any of the poor or any ugliness on the streets,” Ms. Ye said. “They want Guangzhou to be a city that attracts wealth and beauty and is full of luxury cars.”

Ms. Ye’s use of the legal system to fight a government injunction she perceives as unfair may be common in the States, but is still relatively rare in China. She sounds, from the brief description, like a middle-class small-business owner looking out for her own best interests in the face of a government that has the authority to impose city-wide policies with impunity. Her use of language connects her concerns as a business owner to a larger class issue – that of the economic elite and political elite working hand-in-hand to oppress the working poor that are the fuel of China’s industrial powerhouse.

The fact that her case has been heard in court at all seems to signify the slow loosening of the CCP’s legal hegemony in China. As the middle class rises, the party elite will be forced to listen to their concerns, especially as more people will be able to afford lawyers, and cases will, perhaps, chip away at the monolith of CCP control. But what of Ms. Ye’s class conscious rabble rousing? My cynical side thinks that she is less concerned with their plight and more concerned with her business opportunities, but who knows?

Will Ms. Ye win her case? Probably not. But it sounds like Guangzhou, like Shenzhen, which the Times recently ran a series on, is one of the sore spots of China’s economic growing pains, where issues of crime, class, environment, law and power are becoming complicated and blurry.