32 China The EconomistAugust 3rd 2019
2 have tempered hiring, especially in export
industries. A crackdown on shadow banks
(lenders that do not take state-guaranteed
deposits), which have been enthusiastic
recruiters of new graduates, has forced
mass layoffs. Growing international suspi-
cion of Chinese tech firms may slow their
expansion plans, too. Civil-service recruit-
ment, meanwhile, was cut to 14,500 this
year, the lowest intake in a decade.
A recent graduate from Peking Univer-
sity recounts how she was laid off by a fi-
nancial-services firm earlier this year. She
is looking for a job at an internet firm. Pros-
pective employers, she says, have extended
the probation period from two or three
months to six. “During the probation per-
iod employers are legally entitled to pay
only 80% of the normal salary,” she ex-
plains. “More and more companies are ex-
ploiting this power.”
With a degree from China’s most presti-
gious university, she is at least confident
she will soon secure a good job. Graduates
from lesser-known institutions face a
much harder time. Several recruiters at the
job fair in northern Beijing admit to chuck-
ing cvs from “no-name schools” straight
into the bin. Part of the problem, says Josh-
ua Mok, a professor at Lingnan University
in Hong Kong, is that the “average quality”
of graduates may have deteriorated in re-
cent years. The number of universities has
increased from just over 1,000 in 2000 to
around 2,700 today. Employers, unfamiliar
with so many new names, often dismiss
the obscure ones as degree mills. They are
not always wrong.
In 2009 a sociologist coined the term yi-
zu, or “ant tribe” to refer to struggling grad-
uates from the provinces who swarm to
megacities. An estimated 100,000 so-
called “ants” lived in Beijing in 2010. But
the term is no longer widely used, says a
graduate from the southern province of
Yunnan who lives in Beijing. Rising rents,
combined with a crackdown on the illegal
subdivision of flats, have driven most pro-
vincial graduates away. She, too, may move
home soon: salaries may be lower in Yun-
nan, but so is the cost of living.
Many graduates have unrealistic expec-
tations, says Yao Yuqun of Renmin Univer-
sity: “Everybody wants to be a manager
right away.” There are plenty of jobs to go
around, he says. A report in May by the Chi-
na Institute for Employment Research, a
think-tank, found that there were 1.4 entry-
level vacancies (excluding unskilled work)
for each graduating student. Many jobs are
in second- and third-tier cities. Graduates,
it seems, are too snooty to take them. One
calls this the “bator bust” mentality, refer-
ring to Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, three
sought-after online giants. The govern-
ment counsels humility. Anyone blessed
with a job offer, it said recently, should
“promptly sign the contract”. 7F
ollowing eightweeks of protests and
mounting violence, the news that the
authorities in Beijing planned to hold a rare
press conference had many in Hong Kong
holding their breath. The result was a (wel-
come) anti-climax. There were no threats
to send in the army, as some had feared. A
speech by the spokesperson from the Hong
Kong and Macau Affairs Office made no
mention of that until, when asked by a
journalist whether troops could be de-
ployed on the streets he simply pointed to
the relevant sections of Hong Kong-related
laws. While condemning the violence of
recent protests he took care not to criticise
the local government and heaped praise on
the work of the Hong Kong police.
Communist Party newspapers are a bet-
ter place to look for evidence of the party’s
growing frustration. The People’s Dailyor-
dered the police to have no “psychological
worries” about being much tougher. Activ-
ists are already being punished. After a
weekend of violent confrontations be-
tween young pro-democracy protesters
and police using tear-gas and rubber bul-
lets, 44 people arrested during the clashes
were told they would be charged with riot-
ing. They face up to ten years in prison.
The forceful stance of the police has not
quelled the demonstrations. Indeed, many
gathered outside police stations to protest
against the severity of the charges. The ad-
ministration of Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s
chief executive, is paralysed, those at the
very top of it privately admit. Extra-ordinarily, Mrs Lam herself has not made
any public statements for over a week. Al-
though the Communist Party has reiterated
its support, her days are surely numbered,
even if it cannot accept her immediate res-
ignation without a huge loss of face.
As for the police, some complain pri-
vately about poor leadership. Many officers
are livid at being put on the front line to
sort out what they say is a political crisis.
But as the provocations of black-shirted
protesters mounted, it was clear that by the
weekend plenty of officers were itching for
revenge. After applications to march over
the weekend in the central business dis-
trict and Yuen Long—a suburb where pro-
China thugs had beaten up innocent travel-
lers a week earlier—were rejected, activists
went ahead anyway. The police showed lit-
tle restraint. Amnesty International, a hu-
man-rights watchdog, says it has seen “re-
peated instances where police officers
were the aggressors”.
After a wave of arrests, protesters may
be more cautious—although at least seven
marches are planned for August 5th alone.
Meanwhile, there is not much the police
can do should tactics switch to a campaign
of low-level civil disobedience—strikes,
sit-ins and so on. Civil servants, firemen,
bus drivers and many more have backed
one of the protesters’ chief demands: an in-
dependent inquiry into the crisis.
The obvious and perhaps only way to re-
solve the crisis would be for China to keep
its promise to let the people of Hong Kong
choose their own leaders. Dream on. The
radicalisation of the protests is, in part, a
consequence of China’s strategy of perse-
cuting more moderate opposition leaders
trying to work within the system.
For now, China is out to define its ene-
mies in Hong Kong and delegitimise them.
In the propaganda, Hong Kong’s quest for
genuine self-rule is being portrayed as on a
par with “splittists” elsewhere on China’s
fringes, in Tibet or Xinjiang. It is in this
nationalist context that students from the
mainland have recently clashed with ones
from Hong Kong on campuses in America,
Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
Back in Hong Kong, China can always
resort to the ultimate sanction: deploying
the local garrison of the People’s Liberation
Army (pla). That prospect was highlighted
by Mrs Lam’s predecessor as chief execu-
tive, Leung Chun-ying, long close to the
Communist Party. In a letter to the Finan-
cial Timeslast month he insisted that the
pla’s presence in Hong Kong is “not meant
to be token, ceremonial or symbolic” but
rather to help maintain public order. Yet
deploying the plato crush largely peaceful
protests would only deepen the govern-
ment’s illegitimacy in locals’ eyes, while at-
tracting enormous international opprobri-
um. That it is even being discussed is a sign
of how bad things have become. 7HONG KONG
The central government urges the
territory’s authorities to take chargeReclaiming Hong KongProtest, but no
movement
When protests beget protests