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Guangdong - The Cutting Edge
Summary:Guangdong, which accounts for only 1.9 percent of China's land area, generates one eighth of the country's GDP. As economic growth slows, workers may struggle for basic necessities, such as food and clothing.


By Wu Weiting (吴娓婷)
Nation, page 12
Issue No. 554, Jan 30, 2012
Translated by Zhu Na
Original Article:
[Chinese]

This article is part of a special feature published in the run-up to the "two sessions," the EO looked at the challenges facing six of China's provincial party bosses. We have picked three of these provinces – Guangdong, Henan and Sichuan – to show the range of issues that China's politicians face in different parts of the country. To view the other two articles, click here.

Wang Yang, Guangdong Provincial Party Secretary faced a number of "social conflict incidents" (社会冲突事件) in 2011.

After the uprising in Wukan, Wang said the unrest was the outcome of a series of social and economic contradictions. Guangdong, an economic pilot area, has been putting economic development ahead of social construction for years. The province's image was tarnished last summer by conflicts in Chao'an (潮安) County and Xintang Town (新塘镇).

Tensions grew when local security guards attempted to remove migrant workers from the Xintang village of Da Dun (大敦村).

In response, Wang said that his province, which has China's largest migrant community, needed to "know how to properly manage and service the [migrant] population and co-ordinate the interests and relations of residents from different ethnic groups and different places."

As 2011 came to a close, the Wukan incident attracted attention nationally and internationally, with the stand-off between police and villagers lasting from September until December.

Aside from Wukan, protesters also held strikes and blocked roads in a bid to get the pay they were owed in Shenzhen, Dongguan and other areas.

Although there's no specific link between these various incidents in Guangdong, they all stemmed from economic problems.

These tensions may grow if the economy grows by around 8 percent this year.

Last year's conflicts may give Wang Yang impetus to promote social reforms.

Guangdong's rapid growth over the last 30 years has weakened the social order in the countryside and farmers who don't own land often lack economic security and struggle to get a reasonable return on their labor.  

Guangdong, which accounts for only 1.9 percent of China's land area, generates one eighth of the country's GDP. As economic growth slows, workers may struggle for basic necessities, such as food and clothing.

In November 2011, Wang told a meeting that Guangdong's history was based on reform and that the province was at the cutting edge of economic development.
 
A few months after the incident in Xintang Town, Wang announced that Guangdong would begin to open up the registration process for various social organizations starting from July 2012.

Some scholars argued that in areas with such large economic aggregates and dense economic interests, the government must allow the public some leeway to manage themselves.

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