The recent political scene in China is odd. First, we have two Politburo members publicly slugging it out over approaches to economic and social development. Guangdong's party secretary Wang Yang prefers 'making the cake bigger' to smooth over the problem of unequal income distribution, while the red-song-touting party secretary of Chongqing, Bo Xilai, wants to start a 'get rich together' project to divide the cake right away.
Then, two premiers - one incumbent and the other retired - filled the state media with sharply different messages. Former premier Zhu Rongji has produced a book of his speeches, made when he was in office, in which he warned against an 'overheating' economy and real estate speculation. Meanwhile, in Dalian, Premier Wen Jiabao called for political reform and a serious campaign to fight corruption, similar to his other statements that have set him apart from the other leaders.
At first glance, this may seem encouraging for open debate about China's future among the top echelon of the leadership and could mean more political transparency. Moreover, these debates touch on a real problem in China: the widening income gap.
Indeed, a few years ago, the Chinese public would have been fired up by such a debate. But, this time, the people seemed to be suffering from 'stage fatigue' and few paid much attention to their leaders' 'public performance' because they are tired of their promises of change that, in reality, bring no progress.
Throughout the history of Chinese peasant revolutions, most notably during the communist revolution of the 20th century, demand for 'income equality' was the most effective rallying call for the disadvantaged majority. Today's China is facing the biggest challenge to the legitimacy of its government because of an unjustifiably widening income gap. According to the most recent statistics, the Gini coefficient in mainland China has reached 0.5, well above the level of 0.4 that is considered the danger point for social stability. The higher the coefficient, the more unequal the distribution.
Does the Chinese leadership see the writing on the wall? Of course it does. In fact, no serious rulers in Chinese history dared to ignore this problem. Confucius once said that a ruler: