China avoids major social unrest

By Michael Bristow
BBC News, Beijing

Mr Liu hopes to start another business when he has saved enough money

Chinese migrant worker Liu Lanbo lost everything last year when his small factory closed down because of the global financial crisis.

I spoke to him in December outside Guangzhou railway station as he sat on a small sack containing his belongings. He was downcast and on his way home.

China's government feared unemployed migrant workers like Mr Liu could agitate for political change, leading to social unrest across the country.

But that has not happened. Mr Liu might still be without a permanent job, but he and his fellow migrant workers are not taking it out on China's leaders.

Labour disputes

Government officials first started linking unemployment and social unrest at the end of last year when the economic crisis began to bite.

Foreign consumers had less money to buy Chinese-made goods, forcing factories to close down and unemployment to rise.

Even the government admits that some factories closed without paying their workers what they were owed.

This has led to an increase in labour disputes. China's courts heard nearly 100,000 in the first three months of 2009, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper. This figure is more than 50% up from last year.

The Supreme People's Court confirmed the number of these cases had increased.

There have also been protests, particularly in Guangdong province in southern China, where many of the country's exporters are based.

Chinese people are still confident and hopeful about the immediate future Prof Joseph Cheng

But these have mostly been individual incidents that have not developed into a co-ordinated nationwide campaign for political change.

That is partly because there are no independent unions or other non-government organisations in China that could organise a national protest movement.

China is also spending money on a series of projects, including retraining, to help migrant workers find new jobs.

And just in case this does not work, the country's leaders have instructed the security services to watch carefully for any signs of unrest.

Hope for the future

But the attitude of unemployed people like Mr Liu has also been important.

Before the downturn, he ran a factory in the Guangdong city of Dongguan that supplied plastic products to a larger plant. When that plant went bust, Mr Liu had to shut his own factory.

"I tried to find another job, but nobody was hiring so I have to go back home," he told the BBC as he waited to board at train last December.

Home is in central China's Hunan Province, but the migrant worker soon discovered that there was no work for him there either.

Six months on, Mr Liu is back in Dongguan. He cannot find permanent work so is currently doing odd jobs that pay about 100 yuan ($14.60, £9) a day.

"I want to set up my own business like before but, because I've got no money, I have to save up before I can do that," he said.

Mr Liu is down on his luck, but he is still optimistic. This is one reason why there have been no major protests, according to Professor Joseph Cheng from the City University of Hong Kong.

Chinese factories had to close when foreign orders decreased

"Chinese people are still confident and hopeful about the immediate future. They think tomorrow will be better than today," he said.

That hope is supported by the latest economic data.

China's economic growth has slowed this year, but last week financial services firm UBS predicted gross domestic product would still expand by a healthy 7.5% in 2009.

I also spoke to another migrant worker, Wu Xijun, outside Guangzhou railway station last December.

His situation also explains why unemployed migrant workers - farmers who leave their homes for work in the cities - have largely remained quiet.

Most villagers in China are given a small plot of land to farm, and many migrant workers returned to these plots when they lost their jobs.

This has kept them off the city streets where they could gather and protest - and gives them an income so they can feed their families.

This is what Mr Wu has done. He now relies on planting crops and raising pigs.

"Life is tough, but migrant workers can survive," said Prof Cheng.

Of course disputes - or "mass incidents" as the government likes to call them - continue to take place in China.

Just this week taxi drivers staged a strike in Xining, the capital of Qinghai province, because of a dispute about operating rights.

But these are mostly about local issues that have not yet threatened the stability of China or its government.