Central Military Comission calls for armed forces' obedience

An interesting press release from the Central Military Commision (CMC) yesterday calling for all military forces to stay loyal to the chain of command raises a lot of question.

The essence of the statement is very much summarized in the following sentence:

"All military forces should unify their will to the decision and deployment of the CPC Central Committee to ensure that they "uncompromisingly obey the Party and Central Military Commission's command at any time and under any circumstances"

There is no doubt that this year will be a challenging one for the Communist Party. The economic downturn has already resulted in 20 million migrant workers losing their jobs, it's 20 years since the Tiananmen incident (that's the term used by Chinese officals, but most of us would probably agree that "massacre" might be a better word to describe it), and it's 50 years since Dalai Lama fleed to India.

The central goverment seems anxious about the possibility of massive civil unrest. All criticism a side, you have to give them credit for taking the situation serious. The way I see it, this press release is not meant as a threat or an ultimatum to the public,but is a result of a typical Chinese way of thinking: plan for the worst. The Chinese communist party seems much more adaptable now than just a few years back. They are starting to realize that without economic stability (in China, that means massive GDP growth) people might really start to question their rulers.

To me as an economic 外行 it seems like the Chinese government is the only government so far that has taken the financial crises serious. Maybe that's because they know what's at stake, but nevertheless, they seem very aware of the challenges their facing, and more important, ready to deal with them.

A year ago people were talking about the possibility of the Chinese economy getting too hot, and we should remember that even though the so-called experts might be right when they say that China seeds an annual growth around 10 % in order to keep the public on their side, we are not talking about a situation like the one we're facing in the western world, but merely an annual GDP growth around 8 %.

Looks like it's gonna be (another) interesting year for China.

Photo: Flag ceremony at 天安门, 1. May 2008
Photographer: André Holthe