By William Tucker
China’s head of the Central Political and Legislative Committee, Zhou Yongkang, claimed that China is “ill-prepared” to handle massive social unrest. Yongkang’s remarks come on the heels of slowing economic growth and increasing unemployment. China’s unemployment problem has led to wider demonstrations across the country and this has caused a headache for many leaders in Beijing. This represents the crux of China’s current problems. As an export oriented economy, China must rely on continued consumption from its trading partners. Without this, China’s economy grinds to a halt. In response to this, Beijing has often gone to extraordinary measures to keep its population employed. Unfortunately for China, these are temporary measures at best. The longer the global economic woes persist, the longer China is going to have to rely on band-aid solutions for an endemic problem.
Comments are closed.