SINGAPORE -- As China's annual Central Economic Conference gets under-way in Beijing early this month, Beijing looks set to sustain the new social-economic shift that was laid out by the 5th Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CCP) in mid-October. The plenum signaled the Chinese leadership's new social, economic, cultural and political outlook.
The motive behind the plenum's deliberations and decisions appears to be China's growing social instability, which is now discussed publicly. Key officials in the Chinese government have expressed concern over the growing number of protests (official figures number 74,000 for 2004, up from 53,000 in 2003) and the widening gap between the rich and the poor.
Academics blame the social unrest on "errant" local officials who engage in unsavory schemes such as "appropriating" land from poor peasants, withholding workers' payments and embezzling unemployment payments.