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To: TobagoJack who wrote (64)	10/24/2003 8:09:01 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 113

China: Urban Elections To Change Power Dynamic Oct 23, 2003 Summary stratfor.biz China is conducting widespread elections in several urban areas for the first time in its history. Though elections have been common in the countryside for 20 years, the concentration of wealth, mass media and special interest groups in Chinese cities will make the democratic experience far more complicated than in previous years. Analysis China is taking a major step in its experiment with democracy in 2003 by conducting widespread elections in several urban areas. Elections have been common in the countryside for more than two decades, but the democratic process is still new to most residents in Chinese cities. Urban elections are a necessary next step in China's evolution toward a more pluralistic government, but they could dramatically alter the political reality in the country relatively quickly. Compared to villages and townships, cities are centers of greater wealth and more special interest groups. Urban elections are likely to be far more complicated and could have a much broader impact on higher levels of the Chinese government than rural elections. In response to growing local unrest and a need to clean up the lowest level of government, the Communist Party began democratic elections in towns and villages in the countryside more than 20 years ago. By empowering citizens to vote for the leadership of the bottom rung of government, the Party hoped to quell rural residents' mounting dissatisfaction with corruption, high taxes and local fiscal crises. Now the Party is moving the experiment from the countryside into the cities. Pilot cities where district elections are occurring include Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Wuhan and more than a dozen others. According to Chinese law, anyone who has lived in a residential bloc for a specified period is allowed to participate in communal elections -- meaning transplants from other parts of the country, foreigners, Taiwanese, Hong Kong and Macao citizens are able to run for the community seat. Granting urbanites the right to elect their local leaders is much different than in rural areas. The concentration of mass media, expensive infrastructure projects and private wealth in Chinese cities could empower community leaders and prove more disruptive than the Party is accustomed to. Sensitive topics such as unpaid wages and pensions for laid-off workers from state-owned enterprises and corrupt public works projects and land deals could become political fodder for candidates. And unlike in most of rural China, domestic and international media will be consistently present to record the events -- meaning a candidate who takes a stand on a hot issue in Beijing could become a nationwide spokesperson for the topic. Many Chinese citizens have a number of complaints they would like the government to address. However, property disputes -- an issue that falls under the province of community leaders -- have recently become prevalent. Zhou Zhengyi, one of China's richest real estate tycoons, is at the center of a Shanghai corruption scandal involving dubious bank loans and fraud. Several hundred homeowners have filed a lawsuit, charging that they were wrongfully evicted to make way for one of Zhou's property developments on land he reportedly received from the city -- for free. On Sept. 30, police in Beijing detained dozens of people involved in property disputes as they prepared to protest in front of city offices. In recent weeks, there also have been numerous incidents of self-immolation -- including a handful in Tiananmen Square -- and other forms of violent protests as part of a wave of demonstrations against forced evictions. The corruption cases and the public disturbances led to the Oct. 22 sacking of Tian Fengshan, the minister of land and natural resources. Community elections in Chinese cities could help to nip many problems in the bud, but they also could have another unintended side effect. China's new millionaires and billionaires are centered in the cities and for the most part have chosen to be apolitical. But urban elections could offer China's large entrepreneurs an opportunity to influence the decision-making process from the ground up instead of through direct interface with Party officials. Such an event could be very unsettling for China's ruling party, which jealously guards its monopoly on power. As the saying goes, all politics are local -- and local politics in Chinese cities could get very interesting very soon.