On November 18, 2008, China celebrated the 30th anniversary of the opening up of and reforms in China launched by Deng Xiaoping. It was indeed a celebration of the second greatest event witnessed in China during the 20th century, the first being the victory of the communists in 1949.

China’s development in the past 30 years has indeed been spectacular by any measure. The crowning glory was the Beijing Olympics, which demonstrated to the rest of the world what China had achieved — indeed, if its achievements needed to be reinforced at all.

There were a number of themes running in parallel during the 30th anniversary celebrations as President Hu Jintao addressed the politburo and the nation. The events that triggered reforms and change in China in 1978 are still the subject of frequent debate. One core point on which there is general agreement is that Deng was right in concluding that the Chinese people were ready for change and that the Gang of Four did not represent China’s future. The Cultural Revolution had destroyed the soul of China and sapped the will of the Chinese population. It had dug a deep and dark hole in the hearts of the Chinese and filled it with despair and disillusionment.

Following Mao Zedong’s death, the Gang of Four mounted its assault in order to control a subdued and subservient Chinese people and keep them in mental bondage to entrench Mao’s memory as the Great Helmsman. Deng Xiaoping was able to brush them aside as he promised his downtrodden fellow countrymen a breath of fresh air and a glimmer of hope in China’s future. His launch of the reforms and opening up of China in 1978 was an astute understanding of the Chinese people’s hankering for change and a better life. There, however, remained substantial and influential numbers amongst the Party cadres, who had enjoyed power and pelf during the Mao regime, and who remained unconvinced and continued to foment opposition to reforms, eventually with limited success.

In 2008, as China celebrates its stupendous achievements, there is also the beginning of a new debate over the challenges that the global slowdown poses for the country’s sustained nine per cent plus growth which has fuelled the unprecedented prosperity and growing ambition of the Chinese people.

In the 30 years, hundreds of millions of jobs have been created in thousands of new industries. People living below the poverty line have been reduced from 250 million to less than 14 million in the past 20 years. China’s gross domestic product has trebled during this period and China is now the third largest economy in the world. Such statistics are as endless as they are impressive.

The core debate during the 30th anniversary celebrations was about the possible consequences of the slowing down of growth on Chinese society. There is a frank admission of the fact that if the annual growth rate drops below eight per cent, there could be severe civil unrest and disruption. During the past few years, there have been reports of a growing number of riots and protests across the country. Already over 10 million Chinese employed in export factories have lost their jobs and are going back to their villages in fresh search of livelihood. Many factory-owners have disappeared without trace causing widespread anger and panic. One of the biggest problems is to find employment for 6.5 million Chinese boys and girls who will graduate from universities next year and will be searching for jobs. While the Chinese government has announced $600 billion for sustaining growth and is launching massive infrastructure projects to generate employment and building millions of low-cost houses for the unemployed returning to the villages, a sense of uncertainty is palpable.

The Chinese leadership is most worried about the generation born after 1978. They were not part of the history of horrors of the Cultural Revolution. To this new-generation Chinese, growth and prosperity are almost taken for granted: natural and perpetual, and a trade-off for issues such as human rights, press freedom and the overarching role of the monolithic State. If growth starts faltering, it is the reaction of the younger generation — both in rural and in urban China — which the Chinese leaders are most apprehensive about.

The memories of Tiananmen Square are still fresh in the minds of the Chinese leaders and the people. The brutal suppression of the student uprising is something the Chinese leadership dreads and wishes to avoid at all cost. Goldman Sachs is reported to have forecast next year’s growth in China of 6-6.5 per cent. This may sound over-pessimistic but, if it were to pass, China’s 30-year honeymoon with growth and prosperity will be most severely tested. There is also a ‘conspiracy theory’ doing the rounds, in which the West is supposed to have triggered the global economic downturn as a brake on China’s growth; the downturn has gone horribly out of control.

The main thoroughfares of Beijing are spotlessly clean, wide and well maintained. Young drivers whiz past in their foreign brand cars at 80-100 kilometres per hour, weaving deftly through heavy traffic and smog. None of them wears seat belts. That may explain their confidence as well as the perils that may be lurking around the corner.