Abstract
There has been little change in China’s political landscape in recent
months.
The 50th anniversary of Tibet' s failed uprising against Beijing
passed by with little incident on March 10,
as did the 20th anniversary of
the Tiananmen Square protests on June 4 aside from poignant scenes in
Hong
Kong where at least 100,000 people turned out for a candlelit vigil in
Victoria Park. This was
largely due to a concerted effort by Chinese
authorities to stifle dissent. There has as yet been no response
from
Chinese authorities to the request by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to
give full details of
events, and resulting fatalities, from those
momentous events two decades ago.
The main issue in China, as everywhere
else, remains the economy. The country has not been immune to
the global
recession. The sharp economic downturn has been most hard felt in the job
market, with
unemployment in urban areas – the only figure released
by Chinese authorities – hitting 4.3% at the end
of March.
Following years of persistent double-digit growth (during which period Chinese
citizens largely refrained
from greater calls for democracy and overlooked
the Communist Party' s shortcomings in return for rising
standards of
living), rapidly weakening economic activity is now threatening to erode the
confidence
established in the government during the most recent boom
period.
China announced a CNY4trn (US$590bn) stimulus package in November,
which it hopes will support the
200,000 new jobs it needs to create each
year for university and school leavers, as well as stimulate
domestic
consumption as its export industry continues to suffer. A series of
infrastructure and public
works at its heart could allay some of the
distress citizens are feeling from the fiscal climate.
The Chinese arms
industry continues to boom, however, and we have made few changes to our
outlook
for the industry. That being said, economic difficulties, which
are likely to continue, at least in the short
term, could stunt growth in
the sector.
This quarter, we have introduced a significant new aspect to
BMI' s defence reports, which is the City
Terrorism Rating (CTR), which
assesses the risk of a terrorist attack. The CTR takes into account the
overall BMI Terrorism Rating for the country in question. It also incorporates
the ‘prevalence’ of
terrorism, which recognises the frequency
of attacks, and whether the city is a target for terrorists. The
CTR also
recognises the ‘threat' of terrorism in terms of the likely numbers of
victims and the ability of
groups to launch sustained campaigns.
In
China we assess the CTRs for Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. These CTRs are
created via an
integration of the state-wide threat, with an evaluation of
the city-specific characteristics and level of
activity.
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