Personnel

The rising costs of basic food subsidies has become a nagging problem for Wuhan. A severe cash shortage for reconstruction of badly needed transportation and communications facilities, factory equipment, and other basic city services is straining Wuhan's capacity to govern. The rising population, coupled with an annual inflation rate of at least 8 percent (in 1987), has meant that an increasing amount of city money has gone into what one disgruntled economist called "keeping the peace." In one year, from 1985 to 1986, the city's population rose by 116,000 to a total 6,199,600. To long-term visitors, the pressure this increasing population is putting on Wuhan's infrastructure is obvious.^[62]

Facing increasing costs in food subsidies because of this and a provincial government unwilling to allow Wuhan to forgo raising the per capita subsidies in the midst of inflation, the city sought relief where it could. In autumn 1987 a municipal regulation was circulated through various city departments stating that, beginning on January 1, 1988, any unit bringing a new worker into the city would have to pay twelve thousand yuan. Though city planners hoped to make exceptions for certain skilled labor, the rules for which might take six months to formulate, the nascent Wuhan labor market came to a halt weeks before the January deadline. My business source said, "Even though the rules are still to be issued, many units are no longer accepting new employees because they fear they might have to pay."^[63]

[62] Wuhan Nianjian 1987 (Wuhan Yearbook 1987), 36–37. Increasing population has compounded many of Wuhan's problems. For example, in 1984 a mid-morning car trip from Wuhan University in Wuchang to downtown Hankou would take approximately thirty minutes. In 1988 the same trip was taking nearly sixty minutes. A crosstown trip by public transit can take nearly two hours, depending on making connecting lines in time. By early 1990, in the face of the economic retrenchment program, a rush-hour car trip from Wuhan University to downtown Hankou took thirty minutes, reflecting, as provincial officials admitted, the decreased number of people coming into the city for commercial purposes from the surrounding countryside.

[63] I.F. 6, no. 2 (22 November 1987): 1. News of the proposed policy was a serious blow to many Chinese who had been either trying to reunite family members living far away or, for those living in the city without municipal registration, trying to obtain a proper hukou to qualify for the subsidies. Chinese feared that the twelve thousand yuan fee would have to be paid by their family, not by the hiring work unit.

Based on information from three city sources, this policy's brief history clearly reflects the tension between Hubei and Wuhan. The city did not act alone but sought and obtained permission from a provincial vicegovernor to implement the program. When the policy documents circulated around city departments, however, Hubei changed its mind. An official with the Wuhan administration put the issue into terms that reflect both the differing opinions as to the extent of the city's authority and Hubei's fears of Wuhan's independence: "Wuhan wanted to limit population growth, which we see as an economic problem. Wuhan would screen who was coming in and determine who would be exempted. A regulation was prepared for this procedure. Hubei said no. If Wuhan implemented the policy, Hubei might have trouble moving its people in and out of the capital city."^[64]