China’s social contract starting to fray?

“For the first time since 1989, Beijing seems scared.” Source: wikimedia

China’s middle classes have appeared content to trade freedom for prosperity, accepting Communist rule in exchange for steadily rising living standards. But that basic bargain is beginning to unravel, argues Joshua Kurlantzick, as the global economic crisis threatens to undermine the social contract underpinning the country’s developmental authoritarianism.

Despite its reputation, Beijing’s autocracy is anything but absolute. The government long ago abandoned real communist ideology, and its current leader, Hu Jintao, a cipher with a background as a rural bureaucrat, has about as much revolutionary charisma as Bob Dole. And while China’s security apparatus is sophisticated, the country is too large, with too many educated, Internet-savvy people, for Beijing to brainwash its citizens the way Kim Jong-il has in North Korea.