A softer approach needed

A prediction that 16 million workers (in China) will be unable to find jobs this year, gives a small insight into the magnitude of the task. Closing down creaking state-run companies and forging a new era of self-reliance was difficult enough when developing markets offered new opportunities.

Having to continue the process while the economy shrinks, and over-ambitious provincial enterprises collapse like a house of cards, cannot be other than a risky enterprise. But social unrest is unlikely to be stilled by threats of heavy-handedness in dealing with protesters.

The mainland's system still lacks official outlets for the genuine grievances of the poor and the jobless. As long as this remains the case, mass protests are likely to continue. The clues to Beijing's recent clampdown on political dissidents can easily be spotted, perhaps even understood, in this volatile social brew; but events elsewhere in Asia show clearly that suppression is not the whole answer.

The government must convince people that it is aware of their pain, but is determined to carry through economic changes which are, ultimately, for the good of all.

To succeed, especially in a year of politically sensitive anniversaries, the government has to adopt a softer approach to protests. And it needs to prove that the modern China, despite its difficulties, will never resort to the ways of the past.

-- The South China Morning Post, Hong Kong