Hindustan Times
Cost check
Inflation in India is twice as high as the rate in China, but Beijing is more worried that the rising cost of food will threaten social stability. On the surface, China is making a more public display of seriousness in containing prices.
Have you seen a top Indian leader visit a Big Bazaar vegetable counter? We recently saw Premier Wen Jiabao, the face of Beijing’s crisis management, discussing prices in a supermarket with the style of a leader talking to his mass base.
According to Reuters on Sunday, Wen checks the cost of rice, flour, pork and vegetables every morning.
“I’ve grasped from all my years of political life that there are two problems which can threaten social stability and even the steadiness of government. One is corruption, and the other is prices,” Reuters reported his quotes from an online discussion in February.
The Chinese inflation rate of 4.4% is the highest in two years but half the rate in India. When I visit India every six months, I am struck by the weakening purchasing power of the rupee after paying for a restaurant meal or movie. But in China I am never weighed down with the overloaded shopping bags I carried after weekend grocery shopping in Mumbai.
Food prices in China, rising 60-70% according to some estimates, are way higher than in India and restaurants revise prices more frequently. My takeaway grilled vegetable sandwich just got costlier by four yuan (Rs 28). Recent visitors from India have expressed surprise that China is ‘not cheap’.
I am not keeping close track of how India is managing inflation, but Beijing’s flurry of control measures announced this month — release of food reserves, subsidies for low-income groups, cancelling highway tolls for food transport, monetary tightening — seem like more mass based responses. At least the incessant official media coverage of these measures makes it seem like a lot of action. Consumers are still discontented, cutting back, and even planting their own vegetables.
This week in one of China’s poorest southwest province, days after the first cabinet price stabilisation orders rolled out, high school students shattered windows and overturned tables in a 20-minute protest against a price hike of about 0.5 yuan (Rs 3.50) in food and bottled water served at the boarding school canteen.
Principal Fan Guoqing told AFP that 10 to 20 students rampaged while many cheered them on. The public security officials were called in and the prices were reverted to the original.
“The students are mostly from poor families and will be not be held legally responsible,” an official told the Global Times. The protest photographs swept the Internet and left officials worried about copycat unrest.
“Through this incident, I hope the country/government can reflect on itself,” said an online comment from a student of the school.
In India, it is usually the opposition political parties that galvanise street marches over rising food prices. Inflation is a historic factor in sparking unrest in China. Today, most reported protests tend to be spontaneous, localised and small-scale. But the canteen rampage has caught the attention of officials and analysts. Mao Shoulong, a professor of administrative management with Renmin University, told the Global Times of a risk of imitation protests.
“Price inflation is not merely an economic matter. It is also political and social,” Ma said. Beijing campuses have been reportedly ordered not to hike food prices.
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abdul Reply:
December 15th, 2010 at 11:36 pm
why is she so scared of India?
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Kunal Reply:
December 16th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
scared…jealous…..angry….
she or he whoever it is…cannot see the rise of india. so comes and vents out her frustration and tries to stir up indians.
she makes me laugh…what a ******
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