I read an interesting piece from the Inter Press Service. Antonaneta Becker writes of growing resentment in China of the widening gap between the rich and poor.
She mentions talk of a revolution to redistribute the wealth.
What Becker fails to mention is that in India the poverty and corruption is worse. The Economist for October 2 says, “that China has done a better job than India of curbing corruption…”
China isn’t alone when it comes to bribes and corruption.
Earlier this year in Thailand, unrest over corruption turned deadly resulting in cancelled flights from 40 countries.
In fact, a report in the Asian Journal of Public Administration says, “Corruption is a serious problem in many countries. Indeed, in many parts of the world, corruption has become a way life…”
Becker may not be aware that in 1949 when the Communists came to power, about a million wealthy landowners were executed and land was distributed among the poor.
With the landowners gone, agriculture broke down resulting in famines that led to the deaths of about 30 million poor Chinese.
Becker is right about China’s central government fearing an uprising among the poor.
However, rebellions of this nature have happened in China before and most have failed. During the 19th century, those failures cost more than 30 million lives when the Qing Dynasty showed the world that they still had the mandate to rule.
The best solution is to see that the poor have a house and earn enough to buy food since the price of challenging the mandate to rule is often chaos, anarchy and death. No one wins.
See Global Censorship and Corruption
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse 
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