China is bracing itself for a surge of violent protest this year when unemployed migrant workers try to find work after the Chinese new year festival and millions of university graduates enter the jobs market.

Discontent could burst into the open and spread widely, according to an influential government magazine. It appeared that the article was issued as a warning to Communist Party officials to handle grievances with care.

China's Communist rulers have long been nervous that social instability might weaken their grip on power and undermine their claim to rule. They are anxious that celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule on October 1 should be picture-perfect and are determined to avoid a repeat of the student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square that were crushed 20 years ago on June 4 by troops and tanks.

This week's issue of The Outlook Magazine, published by the Government's Xinhua news agency, carried one of the starkest and most public warnings yet of trouble in 2009. Huang Huo, a senior Xinhua reporter, told the magazine: “Without doubt, now we are entering a peak period for mass incidents.”

Mr Huang, whose words in such a publication must reflect Government policy, said: “In 2009 Chinese society may face even more conflicts and clashes that will test the governing abilities of all levels of the party and government.” Large numbers of migrant workers have lost their jobs. Their numbers will be swollen by seven million graduates later in the year, bringing enormous pressure to create employment.

Mr Huang said the Government faced two moments of particular crisis: one in the month after the Chinese new year festival on January 25 when migrant workers may be disappointed when they return to cities to search for jobs, and the second in July after university students graduate.

“If in 2009 there is a large number of unemployed rural migrant labourers who cannot find work, milling around in cities with no income, the problem will be even more serious.” The magazine said the authorities estimated that close to ten million rural migrant workers had lost their jobs but gave no time frame for the sackings. The China Economic Weekly said that total layoffs for last year exceeded the official tally of 8.3 million.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences put the rising urban jobless rate at 9.4 per cent — more than double the Government's published rate.

Mr Huang indicated that the problem was already acute. “Social conflicts have already formed a certain social, mass base so that as soon as there is an appropriate fuse it always swiftly explodes and clashes escalate quickly.” China reports thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of what it calls “mass incidents” each year but these disturbances are usually small in scale and easily suppressed by local authorities.

President Hu Jintao has pledged to make China a “harmonious society” where social differences are narrowed, but rising tension over vanishing jobs and shrinking incomes coupled with longstanding anger over corruption and land seizures are testing his promise. The magazine article said that responsibility for preventing discontent from running out of control lay with officials and their ability to work with those with grievances.

That message echoes a new policy by China's propaganda chief to try to cool tempers by swiftly reporting such incidents to ensure that the Government remains in control of the news and that its message is not undermined by rumours and the internet.

Key dates

March 10: 50th anniversary of the 1959 uprising in Lhasa, Tibet, which led to the Dalai Lama's flight from the country. Protests are planned by Tibetans in exile across the world

June 4: 20th anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests. Authorities have put pressure on the publisher of an outspoken monthly magazine to stand down after it praised a Communist Party chief purged for his sympathies towards the protesting students at Tiananmen

October 1: 60th anniversary — traditionally highly significant — of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949

Source: Times archives

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