Massacres in China as unrest kicks in. How will we respond?

[feargach]

In Marxist China, the safety net for workers who lose their jobs is composed of pointy rocks. No dole, no food stamps, no homeless shelter.

China is currently sailing as close to the wind as she has ever done. She is facing her first-ever risk of major peacetime economic disaster as a capitalist economy. (During the 30s she was a subsistence agriculture nation so the global depression had a limited effect).

Inflation appears to be running very high, and like Ireland she appears to be building a lot of things for which there is no paying buyer.

If/when this all goes off the rails, there is a very real chance that more people will be made jobless than in the EU and North America (including Mexico) combined!

As hunger kicks in, you can expect times to get interesting. And the People's Liberation Army can be expected to respond with the same light touch that we saw in Tienanmen Square in '89.

When the PLA gets Rwandan in murdering their own countrymen, how should westerners who still have an atom of conscience respond? I will certainly feel uncomfortable if I'm still dressed head to foot in Chinese-made clothing, knowing that I'm helping the Beijing dictatorship with my consumer choices.

[paulp]

So this hypothetical genocide would be caused by economic collapse?
And this would make you uncomfortable supporting their economy?

Maybe they'll ask the US for their trillion dollars back?

[Chrisco]

In Marxist China, the safety net for workers who lose their jobs is composed of pointy rocks. No dole, no food stamps, no homeless shelter.

Given that your opening premise is wrong (China is many things, but it's not Marxist, and there is a compulsory unemployment insurance system in China), I'm not sure the rest of your flight of fancy merits much discussion.

[toughbutfair]

There are about 250 Chinese for every one of us so it make no difference what Ireland ever does about global issues. Still the bearded unwashed seem to think they are of great importance on global issues.

[Thac0man]

I agree China has been flying close to the wind. However they are a long way off collapse. They have spent fevourishly and demanded banks lend to everyone and enyone who asks. It all sounds like trouble brewing, true. But we are seeing a rise, not a fall in job opportunities in China. Coastal cities are no longer recruiting mobs who will work for nothing in sweat shops. Chinese workers it seems are getting picky and demanding higher wages.

Change is coming to China, but it seems it is internal and another stage in the economic cycle.

The only problem that could arise would be if the state intervened to make people take low paid jobs, which it seems most chinese do not want any more. That would pose awkward ethical questions, both in China and the West. But its not a step I see happening.

[feargach]

If it doesn't happen, great!

However, do you really believe that it's out of the question?

Some cities and localities have small dole systems, of course, but they are only built to handle the minor hard cases that come up during the boom times. They are entirely inadequate to handle 20 million new unemployed, even if they were only trying to give their clients the bare survival amount of 1000 calories a day.

Some unemployed workers in Shanghai receive only what is known as the Minimum Living Allowance - currently set at around 280 yuan ($34; £24) a month.

In less wealthy parts of China, even this would be a luxury. In many towns, local governments have struggled to pay pensions, sometimes for months or years at a time.

Protests

And the contradictory system of struggling state firms being responsible for paying unemployment benefits to the same workers they have just laid-off is clearly breaking down in some parts of the country.

Chinese girl signs up for the Communist Party
Young people hope joining the Communist Party will improve their prospects

Such problems have provoked a series of protests - this month up to 50,000 laid-off workers have demonstrated in Daqing in north-eastern China, demanding unpaid benefits and pensions.

And 30,000 workers in another north-eastern town, Liaoyang, have staged two weeks of protests against non-payment of wages and official corruption.

Prime Minister Zhu Rongji acknowledged that urban unemployment is one of the country's most pressing problems, and officials are now describing it openly as a potential threat to social stability.

BBC News | BUSINESS | China's unemployment challenge

Call me gullible, but if the Prime Minister of a dictatorship is saying that unemployment is one of the country's most pressing problems, I'm inclined to assume he means it.

[feargach]

China has an unemployment insurance system. At the end of 2003, more than 103.7 million people were participating in the plan, and 7.4 million laid-off employees had received benefits.

Economy of the People's Republic of China - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wow, one in ten people covered. Yeah, they're sorted.

Can we look at what we personally will do once the bullets start flying?

Nothing? Personal boycotts? Organised boycotts?

It would be good to have a plan, it's not as if we can rule it out as a possibility.

[Cassandra Syndrome]

China is a massive bubble. When it will burst is debatable. It won't crash before the Western World. They have little debt at present.

[feargach]

China is a massive bubble. When it will burst is debatable. It won't crash before the Western World. They have little debt at present.

So how will you respond when the blood starts to flow?

Will the rate at which you purchase Chinese merchandise change?

[The_Big_Fellow]

The west will do what it always does, let people harp on about "Marxism" etc. While its banks and corporations bend the knee to Beijing.