According to a Chinese government report, income disparity and government corruption will cause instability throughout the entire country by 2010 if action isn’t taken. This would certainly coincide with anecdotal evidence of increasing large protests, in both size and frequency.

China’s rapidly widening income gap has reached dangerous levels, risking social instability by 2010 if the present trend continues, a government report warns.

“China’s growing income gap is likely to trigger social instability after 2010 if the government finds no effective solutions to end the disparity,” the Ministry of Labour and Social Security warned in the China Daily.

Su Hainan, president of the ministry’s income research institute, found income disparity in China had reached the crucial “yellow” stage — the second most serious in a scale of four defined by the institute.

The situation would deteriorate to the most dangerous “red” stage in 2010 if no effective measures were taken within the next five years, he said.

Violent protests and riots have become common among Chinese frustrated by soaring social inequality, massive corruption and illegal land requisitions, sparking government fears of triggering mass-scale social instability.

Of course, even under the best of conditions, income inequality is impossible to eradicate without being, er, communist. But the report goes on to note that the differences in the rise of income between urban and rural areas, especially in the impoverished interior, may be a source of tension. While this is possible, I don’t think it addresses the issue directly. A bigger problem than any income gap would be the too-slow development in rural areas, and the outright municipal corruption that squanders hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

When most of these protests break out, it is over the latter, and not over the income inequality that exists between them and others in cities that they’ve never been to or interact with. The issue are: Why is the government allowing that factory to poison or local well water? Taxing us greatly and using the money to buy a yacht? Leaving us to the elements while others get schools and highways? Making it hard to just live?

These are the kinds of questions that the people will expect the government to answer between now and 2010. The problem is that China’s own internal contradictions are so entrenched that I find it highly unlikely that it will be able to reform its own practices between now and then. Social unrest will continue to grow, and as that happens, the government will have to deflect that growing frustration elsewhere. That could mean that, following the typical totalitarian model, the Chinese government will seek to turn the attention of its people away from its own local problems to external forces, such as the relationship with Taiwan, Japan, or even the United States. Given the Chinese military build up, this should be cause for great concern as the government may be forced by social unrest to do such a thing. Pragmatically speaking, this is where the next Cold War may occur.