Institution building urgent for social development

In his book Uncertain Future, Singapore scholar Zheng Yongnian proposes that China needs to build a consumer society, so it can rely on its domestic demand for sustainable development. However, such a society requires an institutional foundation, which China is lacking.

It is the lack of modern social institutions that has resulted in the imbalance between the rapid economic growth over the past more than three decades and slow social progress. Along with this mismatch has come the unfairness characterized by the ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots, which has become a potential cause of political instability.

I agree with Zheng when he says in his book that some Chinese officials consider social development as the dividing of a cake and economic growth as the making of that cake. In fact, I would say that it is even worse, that some officials consider the process of social development as a feast for themselves and seek to get the biggest share of that cake through abuse of power.