Unrest in Egypt: Will It Spread to China?

The Wall Street Journal points out that China "isn't immune to Nile fever". China's GDP per capita is one-third of Egypt's, and scores worse on income inequality. The main catalyst for the Cairo riots seems to be the high inflation that has consumed the country for years now. Should the Chinese inflation rate rise, it's entirely possible that we will see the same reactions there. Already, the real-estate bubble in major cities across China is one of the hot topics and biggest sources of friction.

As is usual with instability abroad, the Chinese government has responded to the event by censoring news about the riots. Weibo (China's more "harmonious" knock-off version of Twitter) and Sina.com have blocked any mention of the riots from their search results. (Baidu, another major Chinese search engine, does have some articles about the riots). Government-run media like Xinhua, People's Daily, and the English-language China Daily report only that the UN has called for "order" in Cairo.

Beijing is right to be worried. Nearly every dynasty in China's history has been undone at least in part by popular uprisings. A rebel army led by peasant soldier Li Zicheng took over Beijing in 1644, precipitating the fall of the Ming Dynasty. The Qing dynasty was weakened by both a pseudo-Christian Taiping rebellion and ethnic minority revolts, leading to its complete collapse in 1911. The list goes on. There is no reason to think that the current regime is immune to the patterns of history.

I don't think that the riots in Egypt will directly influence Chinese citizens. As a recent article in Time points out, the Chinese do not view citizens of faraway Egypt as brethren and are unlikely to pay particular attention to the riots going on there. While internet censorship in China is fairly easy to get around (and none of the English-language coverage is blocked), it is unlikely that the majority of Chinese will care enough to look. However, the catalysts that led to the Cairo riots--high unemployment and inflation--could occur in China very soon.

Skirmish at the Cambodian-Thai border

The Washington Post reports at least one and at most four casualties in a skirmish that included exchange of gunfire on Saturday. Thousands have left the area and ancient relics were damaged. The Washington Post suggests that all-out war is unlikely.

Tensions have been building for months over the disputed area. Part of the problem is that the Cambodians burned all of their maps, and thus have a difficult time legitimizing their arguments. Furthermore, the border was initially based on the water table, which has since changed. Both sides have lobbied Internet companies like Google to demarcate online maps as a way to legitimize their claims.

This is a fascinating development in international affairs. Though I am certain it is not the first time this has occurred, it is particularly salient given that a majority of countries’ populations view state-capture by governments as a highly important issue (See Pew Research Global Attitudes Data). Governments rely on companies to legitimize and argue disputes. In many recent instances, companies are the vehicles for citizens to dispute their governments (the Iranian protests come to mind). All the while, smart authoritarian governments, like the Chinese, dedicate ever more resources to managing information and corporations that operate within their borders.

J-20 Stealth Fighter and Gates’ Visit

US Defense Secretary Gates just left Beijing after a meeting with President Hu Jintao to strengthen military ties between the two countries. During his visit, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) surprisingly tested its new J-20 stealth fighter jet, designed to compete with America’s F-22 Raptor (but according to most analyses, it doesn’t come close). Hu insisted that it was nothing more than a coincidence that the test flight happened during Gates visit (even though it was originally scheduled for later this week).

Predictably, headlines on the English-language versions of Chinese propaganda organs shouted that the meeting represented a huge positive development in relations. However, I noticed that the Chinese-language websites of People’s Daily and Xinhua only had one tiny article buried at the bottom the site. Could this be because fenqing (愤青，young Chinese nationalists) would be upset to see negotiations with the US military? I couldn’t figure it out.

By far the most interesting development in this story is the strong suspicion American officials have that the civilian leadership in Beijing had no idea that the military was going to test the jet during Gates’ visit. If that’s true, this mean that Beijing is in fact far less stable than the American media would have us believe. This could have terrible consequences for US-China relations, since Washington must take the much more conservative military faction in Beijing into consideration.

It also raises some interesting questions about recent events: could recent skirmishes in the South and East China Seas have taken place without civilian approval? Could the overeager military crackdown in Xinjiang in 2009 have been on the PLA’s insistence? And most importantly—could Beijing’s new friendly ties with its neighbors, especially in Central and Southeast Asia, be at risk should the PLA gain more political ground?

I’m generally not one to be overly pessimistic about China’s growth, but this week’s events don’t bode well for US-Chinese relations.