China, under Xi Jinping, embarks on a quest to win the trust of its people

Robert Lawrence Kuhn says the public uproar over two recent, unrelated incidents – alleged child abuse at a kindergarten and the eviction of migrant workers in Beijing – highlights how the Chinese leader was right in diagnosing society’s fundamental problem today

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Why you can trust SCMP

Robert Lawrence Kuhn

Published: 6:11pm, 7 Dec 2017Updated: 6:55pm, 7 Dec 2017

How to improve public trust? The party has taken a decisive step by redefining the principal contradiction in society. Illustration: Craig Stephens

The significance of the new “principal contradiction” in Chinese society, established at the 19th Communist Party congress in October and advocated vigorously by President Xi Jinping, is underappreciated. It’s a surprisingly powerful lens for viewing China’s domestic policies. Two recent events in Beijing which have shaken public trust highlight why.

The first was alleged child abuse at a kindergarten. When authorities claimed that the hard disk of the surveillance camera had broken and that the recovered data showed no evidence of abuse, netizens ridiculed the claim and suspected a cover-up. What’s worse, they said, is that the police accused two parents of spreading rumours of the abuse. Angered netizens criticised authorities for enabling the alleged abuser to mask the truth. And when the online criticism was censored, anger escalated.

The second event was a fire in which 19 people died. All were migrant workers and, within days, many migrant workers were forced to leave their “illegal” apartments, literally, in some cases, thrown out into the cold, stoking more public anger. Again, social media, including WeChat, was cleansed of critical comments. The sense was that the local government was taking advantage of the fire by doing what it wanted to do anyway: reduce the number of migrant workers living in Beijing to create a beautiful Beijing of the future.

Even the Chinese state media criticised the local government, saying more “warmth” was needed in moving migrant workers. Sensitivities are so high that the Chinese media can no longer use the pejorative phrase “low-end population”.

Beijing’s cruel eviction of its migrant workers is a stain on China’s urbanisation drive

Some Chinese scholars warn that the government is at risk of falling into the so-called “Tacitus trap”. The Roman historian Tacitus had observed that once a ruler became an object of hatred, the good and bad things he did only aroused people’s dislike of him. The Chinese scholars draw the analogy: “When a government department or an organisation loses its credibility, whether it tells truth or lies, does good or bad, the public believes them to be lies and bad.”

It may surprise Westerners that these two isolated incidents can trigger such heated emotions, even vitriol, towards the government. After all, such tragic or scandalous events are not uncommon in all countries. Why then have these caused such a stir in China, whereas in the US, for example, public interest would barely budge?

At the risk of oversimplifying, I suggest two interlocking reasons. First, people in China have unrealistic expectations that the government can do everything, and second, they believe that the media reports only that which the government approves. The result is that for every problem, the government is blamed, and no matter what the media says, people assume the truth is worse.

Why China hurts itself more than others with censorship

Chinese newspapers are displayed at a news stand in Beijing on November 9, during the time of US President Donald Trump’s visit. Chinese people believe that the media reports only that which the government approves. Photo: EPA-EFE