The office of last resort

Beijing

There is no mistaking the place. It isn’t just the crowd of men and women sitting on the steps of the small official building; it’s the way they look as individuals. Once you’ve come across a group of petitioners in China, you can always spot them again.

They are usually middle-aged or elderly and poor. Their clothes are worn and dusty. They look discouraged, sad, beaten down by life. And yet there’s something else about them — something which says a great deal for the human spirit. They’re defiant. They’ve crossed the intangible barrier which divides the weak of purpose from those who are determined to see their project through, no matter what it costs.

These petitioners have come from all over China to complain about wrongs done to them by officialdom. It’s an ancient tradition: the Tang poet Du Fu, who wrote with an almost journalistic eye in the 8th century ad, mentions it. People could appeal to the Emperor if they had suffered injury, and eventually, perhaps, he would hear the case and dispense justice. Or not. In that sense, as in so much else, nothing much has changed.

The present Chinese leadership took over in 2002 and leaves power in a few months’ time. It has kept Mao’s moon-face on its banknotes, even claiming that the old rogue was the author of China’s present economic development; but it has done two immensely difficult things with remarkable success. First, it has overseen a quadrupling in the size of the economy in a decade, with a resulting increase in the number of dollar billionaires from a lone one, a few years ago, to no fewer than 270 now. Second, at the same time, it has managed to avoid open divisions at the top of the Communist party; not easy given that some members of the leadership aren’t at all happy with the notion of China as a tearaway capitalist economy, and don’t believe for a moment that this was what Mao really intended.