SUN WUKONG
A revolutionary rallying cry for students
By Wu Zhong, China Editor
HONG KONG - The Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 launched by late chairman
Mao Zedong is officially refuted as 10 years of political and social chaos, the
most serious political mistake committed by the great helmsman in his life.
Ironically, it seems Beijing now has to call on Mao's wisdom in its efforts to
help ease the problem of worsening unemployment among university graduates.
Reading Chinese newspapers, one often comes across a Cultural Revolution
slogan: "Go to work in the countryside and mountainous areas!" Metaphorically,
this slogan is now shouted to encourage university graduates to lower their job
expectations
and take up jobs in rural areas or at the grassroots that would have previously
been regarded as inferior.
Strictly speaking, the idea of encouraging urban educated youths to "go to work
in the countryside and mountainous areas" originated during the Cultural
Revolution. In the early 1950s, an idealistic Mao started to advocate that
educated urban youths should go work in rural areas, seeing this a helpful
measure to eventually eliminate the "three differences" (between workers and
peasants, urban and rural, manual labor and mental labor). In Mao's opinion,
only when these "three differences" were eliminated could the goal of communism
be attained.
In 1955, having read some reports about a few secondary high school graduates,
then still very scarce, who volunteered to return to work in their native
villages, an exited Mao wrote: "All intellectuals who can go to work in the
countryside should happily do so. The countryside is a vast expanse of heaven
and earth where one's career can flourish."
But such a voluntary movement became a compulsory campaign during the Cultural
Revolution. In 1968, Mao ordered educated youths (read high school graduates)
in cities to be sent to the countryside to "receive re-education from poor and
low middle-class peasants". From then on until the end of the Cultural
Revolution, each year millions of students said good-bye to their families to
go to work in the countryside. Many current Chinese officials in their mid- or
late-50s, including Vice President Xi Jinping and Vice Premier Wang Qishan,
belong to this "re-educated" generation.
The campaign was launched under heartening revolutionary slogans at that time.
However, retrospectively, people now realize that the practical purpose of the
campaign, despite all of its "revolutionary" colors, was to curb urban
unemployment. Under Mao's socialism, the government was responsible for
providing jobs for people of working age.
With the Chinese economy on the verge of bankruptcy, there was no way for the
government to create new opportunities to meet the growing needs of its people,
as those who were born in the baby boom years in the early 1950s began to reach
working age. Universities had not begun to enroll new high school graduates
until the late-1970s. Had the universities enrolled new students, it would not
have helped with the situation much anyhow as the tertiary educational
institutions at that time could only take a very small proportion of high
school graduates.
The government today can no longer launch a compulsory campaign to force a
university graduate to take up a job, let alone to go to the countryside. But
that doesn't mean it won't try to persuade them. Such a desperate effort by
Beijing proves how serious the unemployment problem facing university graduates
really is.
According to official statistics, about 6 million university students will
graduate with various degrees this year. Add that to the number of past
graduates still seeking employment and there will be some 7 million graduates
looking for jobs this summer.
Since China began to enforce the "one-child" policy in late 1970s, every year
about 15 million babies have been born. That means each year some 15 million
youths reach working age. University graduates thus make about half of this
army. This is one reason why the Chinese government attaches such great
importance to the unemployment problem facing the university graduates.
This is not the first time in recent years that university degree holders have
had trouble finding employment. Following the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the
then Zhu Rongji cabinet launched a series of measures to boost domestic
consumption to counter the negative impact of the crisis on economic growth.
One of the measures involved expanding the enrollment of university students by
"commercializing" and "industrializing" tertiary education. Under this policy,
the number of university students grew five-fold in a decade, from 1.08 million
in 1998 to 5.68 million in 2008. And each year from 2003, fresh university
graduates have found it increasingly difficult to find jobs. In the beginning,
students from lesser-known schools felt the burn. But lately even degree
holders from top schools such as Peking University or Tsing Hua University have
been unable to find work.
But this year there are special reasons why the authorities are even more
concerned with the problem.
Under the gloom of the global financial crisis, the politburo of the Chinese
Communist Party this week forecast that 2009 will be the most difficult year
for the country's economy. Unemployment will soar as the economy takes a
downturn. Officials earlier said the global financial crisis had already cost
20 million rural migrant workers their jobs. The government's statistics show
the unemployment rate of 2008 is 4.2%, excluding rural migrant workers. Taking
rural migrant workers into account, a study by the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences puts the figure as high as 9.4% in 2009 and predicts it will rise to
11% this year.
Accordingly, "ensuring economic growth and preserving jobs" has become the top
priority of Beijing's agenda this year. And helping university graduates find
employment falls under the category "preserving jobs", for it is no longer an
economic issue. For Chinese authorities, this is an issue with serious
political and social implications that will impact the country's stability.
This year marks the anniversaries of two student-led pro-democracy movements -
the 90th anniversary of the May 4 movement in 1919 and the 20th anniversary of
the student-led pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square that were
crashed by a bloody crackdown on June 4.
It is true that in recent years Chinese students have become increasingly
indifferent to political issues, caring more about their personal future than
the future of the nation. So if the economy is doing well, they might not be so
concerned with the anniversaries. However, this is not a normal year. If a
great proportion of graduates can't find jobs, they may become restless and the
anniversaries might inspire them to take collective action, which in turn could
spark social unrest. Moreover, those students who are still studying would
become restless worrying about their future. This could be another source of
potential unrest.
This explains why Beijing has attached such great importance to the issue.
Premier Wen Jiabao, in a recent visit to a university campus, personally
assured the students: "Please put your minds at ease. The government will do
whatever it can to help you find jobs."
Thus, launching a nationwide propaganda campaign, the authorities have picked
up the Cultural Revolution slogan appealing for students to take whatever jobs
are available to them. But students may not need authorities to remind them of
this.
Judging from newspaper headlines such as "three dozen university graduates
including PhD holders compete for a post with a neighborhood committee" (in
Shanghai) or "university graduates willing to clean streets", one can see how
flexible students are with regards to employment. A neighborhood committee,
normally consisting of housewives, takes care of trivial issues happening in
the neighborhood. It also keeps an eye on the neighborhood and reports to the
authorities any suspicious individuals and activities.
The government is trying to create more civil service posts for fresh
graduates. The People's Liberation Army is also drafting more university
graduates. Some regional governments encourage grads to work in villages with a
promise that they will be employed by the government two or three years later.
In some places, local governments also offer loan guarantees for small- and
medium-sized enterprises if they employ university graduates.
Chinese authorities are also offering financial subsidies and taxation
incentives to encourage graduates to start their own businesses and become
self-employed. A few years ago, a Peking University bachelor degree holder
opened a butcher shop, after spending some time in vain seeking a job. The
headline "Peking University graduate becomes a butcher" shocked the public,
with critics saying it was a big waste of education resources and personal
talent. Today, however, that shop owner is quite well off, and often cited by
city officials as a good example to convince graduates to become self-employed.
Under the current financial crisis, many countries face the problem of growing
unemployment. The Chinese government's all-out efforts to help university
graduates find employment are understandable. But in the long run, China needs
to restructure its tertiary education so that universities can produce
graduates in areas that are in need by society. After all, higher education is
still quite a luxury in the country, and it is indeed a big waste of resources
and talent for university graduates to take jobs for which less-educated people
are qualified.
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