Rural unrest in China and various needed reforms.

China weighs repression or enhanced property rights for farmers as a solution to a suprisingly large number of riots and demonstrations in China last year.

The Public Security Ministry estimated the number of riots and demonstrations at 87,000 during 2005, up more than 6 percent from 2004 and quadruple what it was a decade ago.

The violence is in part a reaction to an economic boom that has produced 9 percent annual growth in China but benefited mainly city dwellers.

Some Chinese officials have suggested strong repression is the best response. . . . But the senior leadership, while not repudiating use of force, has emphasized solving farmers' underlying problems as the long-term solution.

Premier Wen Jiabao last month warned senior rural bureaucrats against making "a historical mistake" by failing to protect farmers and their lands, which he predicted would lead to more violence. In particular, he cautioned, towns should not violate the law in seizing land nor sell confiscated fields to businesses as a way to raise public funds.

It's interesting to contemplate from what is reported here that some communist officials in the countryside appear to believe that they can just take property from someone without compensation.

The Chinese Communist Party has never been high on the Colonel's list of great institutions in human history. That is has pulled off an incredible feat of transforming China cannot be denied, however, though there's some truth to the proposition that it had the good sense finally to get out of the way of China's innovative citizens.

It's ironic that the Chinese Communists, who chew nails for breakfast, should recognize the formula for red hot growth when the tired old socialists in the capitals of Eurabia can't. With luck, maybe they will organize some seminars for them, or even for the "Beltway Party" (per Daniel Henninger, WSJ) here in the U.S.

China has a ways to go before it can be handed any olive branches. We've reported on a NYT piece recounting hideous police and judicial abuse. The rights of defendants in the criminal courts need to be expanded drastically and property rights need to be recognized and protected.

Also, the communists need to give up on the unworkable idea that they can really control ideas and news coming into the country.

The impossible problem for the Chinese Communist Party to solve is that Chinese egalitarianism and Communist Party cadre privilege do not mix. And, boy, are we talking major privilege.

We're guessing that if you have a death wish in China, a good way to have it fulfilled is to call for an airing of the issue of Party privilege.

"In Face of Rural Unrest, China Rolls Out Reforms." By Edward Cody. Washington Post1/28/06 (emphasis added).