Beijing gets cold this time of year and the impending winter is especially hard now for tens of thousands of city residents. In the past week or so, the Beijing Municipal Government has demanded that people immediately vacate dwellings that have been deemed unsafe. It doesn't matter that they have lived in these homes for many years and have nowhere else to go on such short notice. Police have been deployed to force people to leave as bulldozers move in to demolish large areas of housing and small businesses.
The action comes after a tragic fire, on November 19th, which killed 19 people in a cramped, migrant worker neighborhood. There certainly are fire and safety issues that need to be addressed in Beijing's working class precincts, but the government's sweeping and instantaneous uprooting of so many families goes well beyond the putative safety concerns. It is an assault on the "low end population," - diduan renkou 低端人口 - a dehumanizing term coined by the government to describe workers from other provinces who do not hold official Beijing residency papers, in an aggressive and coercive gentrification. It is happening all over the city.
Some Chinese intellectuals have publicly criticized the heartless manner in which the mass evictions have been carried out. An open letter states: “Any civilised and law abiding society cannot tolerate this, we must clearly condemn and oppose these actions.”
And we could add, any humane and caring society, one that lived up to the highest ideals of its Confucian tradition, should also condemn and oppose these actions. That's what Mencius would do.
Consider this passage:
As to the people, if they have not a certain livelihood, it follows that they will not have a fixed heart. And if they have not a fixed heart, there is nothing which they will not do, in the way of self-abandonment, of moral deflection, of depravity, and of wild license. When they thus have been involved in crime, to follow them up and punish them - this is to entrap the people. How can such a thing as entrapping the people be done under the rule of a benevolent man? Therefore an intelligent ruler will regulate the livelihood of the people, so as to make sure that, for those above them, they shall have sufficient wherewith to serve their parents, and, for those below them, sufficient wherewith to support their wives and children; that in good years they shall always be abundantly satisfied, and that in bad years they shall escape the danger of perishing. After this he may urge them, and they will proceed to what is good, for in this case the people will follow after it with ease.
若民，則無恆產，因無恆心。苟無恆心，放辟，邪侈，無不為已。及陷於罪，然後從而刑之，是罔民也。焉有仁人在位，罔民而可為也？是故明君制民之產，必使仰足以事父母，俯足以畜妻子，樂歲終身飽，凶年免於死亡。然後驅而之善，故民之從之也輕。
Mencius believes that a government is responsible for creating economic conditions that facilitate the moral lives of "the people." The struggling migrant workers in Beijing are trying to secure a "certain livelihood," steady employment and enough of a paycheck to take care of their families. By destroying their homes and pushing them out into the cold, the municipal authorities are denying people the means to "serve their parents" and "support their wives [spouses] and children." Should the people protest and if they are arrested, they are not, from this perspective, guilty of some sort of crime. Rather, they have been "entrapped" by an inhumane government. Desperation born of intolerable circumstances is a sign of callous leadership.
Some might want to argue that the notion of "low end population" has some resonance with the Confucian idea of "small people" - xiaoren, 小人. And it's true that Confucius and Mencius are sometimes exasperated at the moral failings of people with insufficient moral education. But that is not reason to cast people out of their homes and drive them out of the city. Indeed, their perspective would be precisely the opposite: when confronted with "small people," government must remain steady in its commitment to provide stable material opportunities and public education.
However much leaders in China like to present themselves as avatars of a revived traditional Confucian morality, the actions in Beijing trample upon the basic precepts of Confucianism and offer only the most depressing illustration of inhumane government.
Comments