Our friend at the New York Times, Howard W. French, reports that things are starting to move in Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong.
When citizens found out about a plan to build a highway through their middle-class neighborhood they decided to fight.
Over the next two years they managed to halt work on the most destructive segment of the highway and forced design changes to reduce pollution from the roadway.
There are numerous similar stories. Of course a lot of the stories are NIMBY-style activism. But the movement goes beyond that. Citizens formed an internet group Interhoo,
an independent association of civic-minded professionals who discuss municipal policy issues, publish position papers and quietly lobby the government over development strategy and other issues.
Even in Communist dominated China, Interhoo is making a difference.
“In the past five or six years there are signs that new politics, economics and culture are emerging in Shenzhen,” said Jing Chen, a scholar with the China Development Institute, a local research group, and a member of Interhoo. “There is an awakening of awareness on public issues. The 6,000 members of Interhoo discuss these issues and have published books that have had a great influence over the government.”
Of course, the New York Times being what it is, we get the story presented as a case of community activism.
But the larger question gets back to the basic Hayekian argument about spontaneous order. Society is just too big and complicated to be governed top down. Continued prosperity requires horizontal relationships, contractual give-and-take.
Can the authoritarian political class in China resist the competence and the energy of the burgeoning middle class? And, deep down, does it want to?
That will be the great question for China and the Chinese people.
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