Heavy-handed campaign

Perhaps the United States is correct when it says economic liberalization will eventually result in political reform in China — although up to this point, that theory has remained just that: a theory.

That’s why I was surprised earlier this month when hundreds of Beijingers took to the streets, not to protest low wages, poor living conditions, corruption or pollution, but rather China’s latest “one” policy: the “one dog policy”.

The Beijing municipal government has stepped in between man and man’s best friend, resulting in hundreds of people gathering outside the city’s zoo to wave placards and shout angry slogans.

The introduction of the “one dog policy” is in response to a rabies epidemic that, if the government is to be believed, is sweeping the country. Last year, thousands of dogs were culled in the rural Chinese provinces and Beijing has decided to step in to ensure the disease doesn’t spread in the capital.

Police have been knocking on people’s doors and taking household pets even if they have been immunized, according to some of the demonstrators. And the policy goes even further than allowing just one dog: That one dog must not exceed 35 centimeters in height, and if it does, it gets taken away by the doggie police, too.

Demonstrators held up stuffed animals and shouted slogans like “love our dogs, love others for a harmonious society,” stealing President Hu Jintao’s signature line about promoting a “harmonious” society in China. About 200 police officers monitored the demonstration, with riot police on standby. Several people were arrested, and some claimed to have been beaten by police.

By comparison, Shanghai Communist Party chief Chen Liangyu has been brought down in a corruption scandal that saw more than a billion dollars in pension funds misappropriated. The scandal continues to grow, with other officials in Shanghai and Beijing being drawn into its web. But this flagrant misuse of state funds hasn’t spawned a single demonstration anywhere in the country.

Mao Zedong once said, “The nature of the people of the country is inertia,” and that may be true — if there’s one thing about China, it’s that people don’t generally give much thought to politics.

China’s 5,000-year history has been marked by periodic uprisings, usually from the disenchanted countryside. And considering its long history, China has had very few governments, with some dynasties lasting for hundreds of years.

The country’s latest dynasty, the Communist Party, knows this, and knows the people will give it some leeway, even if it impinges on their freedoms. The Chinese, in general, don’t seem to spend too much time worrying that Web sites are blocked, that the air is polluted or that news media is centrally controlled. Even corruption has become so commonplace that it barely raises an eyebrow.

But the Chinese people personify the idea of the “sleeping dragon” — political activism is there, right under the surface; it just takes the right issue to bring it out. And the government has done a relatively good job of letting the dragon continue its slumber — until it decided to mess with Fido.

One of my good friends in Beijing, who is the antithesis of “politically active,” is furious at the one-dog policy, and can’t understand why people need to pay a yearly registration fee to own a dog. “The government now takes 1,000 Renminbi ($147) per year to have a pet. What do they do with the money? Where does it go?”

Questioning government expenditures or tax policies is rare, and even more uncommon for a girl who usually couldn’t care less what the government does, as long as she has enough food on the table and can go shopping for fake Louis Vuitton handbags in the city’s trendy Xidan shopping district on the weekend.

It’s this kind of activism that the government has tried to let sleep, but it has awoke with a seemingly innocent policy to prevent the spread of rabies.

Despite this though, the Communist Party appears as entrenched as ever. Mr. Hu continues to tighten his grip on the country by further restricting foreign news media and dissent, purging those loyal to previous leader Jiang Zemin, tightening controls on the internet, and pouring billions of additional dollars into the country’s military.

The one-dog policy will not bring about the government’s inevitable downfall, but like the assassination of Austria’s famous Archduke back in 1914, it’s often the small conflicts that lead to the biggest changes.

Cam MacMurchy, a Canadian who spent the past two years in China, is the executive editor of an English-language TV station.