Meanwhile, on the Time magazine blog, Simon Elegant has been sitting in on Wen Jiabao’s ‘work report’ to delegates at the National People’s Congress.
It took two and half hours but there was no question then and in subsequent comments by senior officials that inflation is very much on their minds. Wen said their target for the year is 4.8 per cent, which seems optimistic given that its currently running at 7.1 per cent (January) and rising. With inflation, as with everything else, perception is just as important as reality. And that’s where the problems lies for Beijing. With most of the rise coming from food (80 plus per cent according to the government) these jumps really hit hard.
His colleague Jodie Xu, meanwhile, has been seeing the impacts up close in Beijing’s food market:
Wang Litian, a 67 year old retired worker from Beijing Bus Factory, recently faced an impossible choice: cut her medical expenses by not taking painkillers or cut down on her food spending. Wang lives with her husband, son and daughter-in-law and a granddaughter The family’s income is mostly spent on food and medicine. But with the food prices continuing to soar, they now have a choice between food or medicine. “Last year, our food expense was a little over one thousand yuan a month. It has risen to over two thousand now,” Wang says, waving her hands in agitation. “My salary has just been increased by 200 yuan a month, but the food prices rise much faster.”
Wang isn’t alone in suffering from a recent bout of inflation that hit the food sector hardest. A retired factory director who gives his name only as Old Ma grumbles about the price of lamb. “Our quality of life is steadily declining. Last year, my family could afford to have meat twice a week. Now we only eat meat once every month.” Ma, says his family of seven budget 1,500 yuan a month for food. But now that means most meals consist of cabbage and potatoes. To get cheaper prices, Old Ma delays his daily visit to the food market until four o’clock in the afternoon. “The later I go, the cheaper the price is. I exchanged the quality for the quantity. If the price doesn’t stop going up, it won’t be long before people start to protest.”
As Simon Elegant recalls, it’s not hard to see why the CCP are so worried about inflation: it was one of the main drivers of protests at Tiananmen nearly 20 years ago…
