China’s communist leadership is trying to paint a smiley face over its most recent brutal suppression of dissent. Five days ago, protestors were gunned downed by police in a village not far from Hong Kong. The authorities blame a “few instigators” for the violence, but this event is indicative of growing socio-economic shifts in mainland China; namely the disparity between those profiting from communist experimentation with capitalism, and those left on the sidelines.

China’s government is trying to put lipstick on the pig. From MSNBC.com:

The government said three people died in Tuesday’s violence in this coastal village northeast of Hong Kong, but witnesses put the death toll as high as 20.

From the International Herald Tribune:

The delayed response by the government appeared, at least in part, to be part of a carefully measured public relations effort intended to defuse public outrage over the deaths of 20 or more residents of the hamlet, according to villagers’ accounts, as well as upholding Beijing’s own vision of public order and the “rule of law.”

The official account of the incident, as well as the death toll being reported in the mainland Chinese media, remain at odds with largely concordant accounts of the villagers, dozens of whom have been interviewed since Friday.

Is China really “perfecting communism through capitalism,” as its architect of economic reforms, Deng Xiaoping, once said? Again, MSNBC.com:

Such incidents have alarmed communist leaders, who are promising to spend more to raise living standards in the poor countryside, home to about 800 million people.

By the government’s count, China had more than 70,000 cases of rural unrest last year. Protests are growing more violent, with injuries on both sides.

President Hu Jintao’s government has made a priority of spreading prosperity to areas left behind by China’s 25-year economic boom. But in many areas, families still live on the equivalent of a few hundred dollars a year.

The Washington Post adds:

The long-simmering conflict in Dongzhou arose over disputed confiscations and what farmers here said were inadequate compensation payments. Authorities exercising the equivalent of eminent domain seized farmers’ fields to build a wind-driven electric generating plant on a hillside overlooking the village. The plant would be part of a $700 million electricity development project to supply the growing power needs of Shanwei and surrounding towns and villages.

Villagers, contacted by telephone, complained that the compensation was inadequate. Moreover, they charged, the power plant would also spoil fishing in Baisha Lake, a tidal inlet just below the hill, on which villagers rely heavily for food.

The confrontation was typical of the tension between the drive for economic development in China — which has a growth rate of 9 percent a year– and farmers’ desire to retain the land that they regard as security for their families. Land disputes have been a prime reason for popular explosions of violence, which the Public Security Ministry estimates involved 3.76 million people in 74,000 incidents during 2004.

In a country which supposedly adheres to an orthodox version of communism, the disparity between haves and have-nots is growing. So much for Mao’s dream of making everyone “equal” — forcing all the “people” to wear the same uniform and carry the same “little red book.” This is all more Kafkaesque than it is a page out of Das Kapital.

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