A decade after an explosion of unrest in China’s north-east, a remarkable recovery is under way
The outgoing party chief, Jiang Zemin, was trying to promote a new catchphrase for the party called the “three represents”, including the notion that the party represented “the fundamental interests of the majority”. The workers who took to the streets in the spring of 2002, in the cities of Daqing, Fushun and Liaoyang were in effect saying that the party did not represent them and had indeed failed them.
Within a year of taking over from Mr Jiang, Hu Jintao launched a campaign to “revive the north-east”. It was an ambitious project for a region that had few of the advantages of the fast-growing Yangzi and Pearl River deltas, with their better-developed private sectors and ready access to investment and know-how from abroad, especially Hong Kong and Taiwan. Of the north-east’s GDP, two-thirds was being produced by state-owned firms
Much work remains to be done, from the reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to boosting social-security provisions. But a decade on, as Mr Hu and the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, prepare to step down, the party is likely to tout the north-east’s revival as one of its successes.
