similar groups (Hsia 2004). In the treatment of protesting workers, however, authorities
have been willing to placate bereft workers/pensioners demanding their over-due benefits
while picking out “ringleaders” (Cai 2002).
The Party establishment has sought again and again to limit the circulation of
potentially subversive ideas. While China boasts the largest media and book markets in
the world, certain books have been banned, including the popular A Survey of Chinese
Peasants, which brought the plight of farmers to the attention of elite and the reading
public. From time to time, the Party’s Propaganda Department has instructed the media
to tame tone down their coverage of certain themes, including issues of inequality, class,
and social justice (for broader discussions, see Liebman 2005, Zhao 1998). Public
intellectuals who would stick out their heads to advocate radical political change risk
losing their state sector jobs at universities and not getting published within China.
Dissident internet posters without formal state sector employment have faced harsher
treatment and dozens now languish in jail.
Within this authoritarian framework, the Chinese leadership has since the late
1990s launched a variety of populist initiatives to address imbalances in the economy and
society. Urban authorities have stepped up their efforts to make sure wages and pensions
are paid and paid on time. There has been special emphasis to help disadvantaged groups
(ruoshi qunti). As corporate downsizing accelerated, the central government as well as
local authorities have sharply raised the number of urban residents receiving minimum
livelihood support and increased outlays so that anyone qualifying for such support
would receive it. At the end of 2000, the number of people on such support was 4
million. This number rose to 11.7 million at the end of 2001 and 22 million as of mid-
Convention