Return to China (回家看看)

Every time I return to China, there are some interesting and new findings, even though this is where I originally grew up. This time I have spent about a week in Shanghai, with the following points worth reporting:

To start with, I think the so called worry about a jasmine-like revolution to take place in China is grossly misjudged. Yes there are complaints about the current government regarding corruption, unfair or low efficiency. But these are exactly like all the complaints in every country towards their government. In my view there are two key fundamental differences between today’s China and Libya or Egypt:

Firstly, the unemployment rate is low in China. In fact, for sectors such as manufacturing, there is a shortage of labor in most coastal provinces in China. The government has successfully maintained a fast growing economy that requires the employment of large amounts of labor (ie., through construction works). As a result of being employed, people’s income increases (though at different rates). Today most people’s complaints focus on the income gap rather than on poverty. For those who haven’t got rich as quickly as those lucky or resourceful, at least their own wealth has increased rapidly as well compared to 10 years ago – it is just that the growth has not been as fast as those who have done well.

Another misconception is that in fact, China, overall, has an open attitude toward the world rather than a closed one as if often imagined. The Western media has spent a lot of time talking about site blockage of facebook and youtube in China or google’s exit from China. To a certain extent it does reflect the Chinese government’s desire to enforce control on information flow. On the other hand, however, China’s government is also very keen to push internationalization and English education in the country. For example, when I was waiting to draw some cash in a bank, they call the ticket numbers in both English and Chinese. All tubes and buses have English signs for stations and remind stops bilingually. To get into a college, a student has to go through at least 12 years of English education and complete a comprehensive test of English. In a way, the Communist party is muddling through with sometimes self-conflicting strategies: they encourage the educated people to be well informed and internationalized, and on the other hand, they try to curb control if they see threat. Overall however, such a system is determined to be imperfect: you can’t stop English-educated people from understanding what is going on in the world, leaving the country, or coming back.

So back to the domestic economy: the great thing that strikes me is the capability of the economy to produce a large variety of products at a super low cost. For example, as you go to the supermarket, the big malls are filled with so many different types of products from all over the place (naturally all made in China). One often argues that Chinese product is cheap because of an undervalued currency. However, I feel that these products are cheap even in RMB. A well printed Chinese dictionary costs 50 yuan (less than 5 pound) and a football costs 30 yuan. My point is that due to whatever reason, chinese manufacturers have achieved competence by supplying good quality goods at competitive price – that is a strong edge difficult to emulate.

On the other hand, the by product of an investment driven economy is also obvious. Shanghai is one of the least polluted cities in China (Beijing, Guangzhou, etc even worse). Yet if one wanders around outdoors for a day, you get back with a full nose and face of dusts. Construction works seem to be going on forever in different parts of the city, followed by dusts and noise. People seem to be used to an intense competitive relationship even on the street level. For example, there are a lot of cars on the street. Yet the road system has not developed fast enough to cope with so many vehicles. Therefore every driver competes to survive on the road. You have to be fast enough to make a turn or change the lane – otherwise you will never make it. If you wait for others to pass by, those behind you will be so impatient to start horning at you, and you might have to wait long for the next kind driver to give way to you.

A lot of things that can’t be possibly imagined in the West happen here, making life less than simple. For example, one of my friends’ car was hit by a motorbike on the road, so he stops his car and tried to talk to the motorbike driver. The bike driver was fully drunk and kicked my friend and then ran away. Then you go to the police station and are told that the motorbike was probably stolen and they couldn’t find the driver anymore. In another incident my friend and I got food poisoning from a restaurant and got very sick, and then when we went back to the restaurant to complain they don’t give a shit (the restaurant has a good reputation with a big picture of a movie star hanging in front of the door).

So this is China – a land with excitement and danger, and with hope and disappointments. Guess all depends on how you see it.

This entry was posted on March 23, 2011, 7:13 PM and is filed under From China (内部思潮), Publication (出版发行). You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Comments

#1 by annoymous on March 24, 2011 - 1:06 PM

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unemployment rate is low in China, but the wealth gap is beyond your image. did you see the benz, audi cars everywhere but still many citizens even cannot afford the children’s education?

behind the low cost, it’s the blood and sweat of the workers. lots of overtime, no allowance, no insurance, low pay..what’s the hell are we proud of?
#2 by nanosat premium on March 25, 2011 - 7:23 PM

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Terrific kind of story you shared.Your writing ability inspired me read your article.
#3 by Kevin Lin on March 28, 2011 - 4:16 PM

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Good article WZJ! I’m quite impressed with your writing.
#4 by Ben Lim on March 29, 2011 - 12:38 PM

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Wu-san

Well written! Well done.

As someone with a strong academic interest in China, I have a few comments/questions. Hope you can oblige me:

1) I share your view that the much-talked about “Jasmine Revolution” in China is far from reality. As you might also have noticed, this talk was loudest in the western media (CNN, BBC, etc.), who certainly have a ideological (if not, vested) interest in seeing the notions of “democracy” and “freedom of speech” spread around the world, without much thought about what really happens in society and the people after such aims have been achieved.

2) I think what you have outlined is indeed very true, especially when you say “Today most people’s complaints focus on the income gap rather than on poverty.” and also “…at least their own wealth has increased rapidly as well compared to 10 years ago”. It is evident that in the 33 years since the reforms of 1978, China and Chinese incomes have departed for good from where they were at that point. However, wealth (and poverty) is a relative concept, and no matter how rich you are, you will always be poorer in relation to your rich boss or the wealthy Party official. They key is in reducing the poverty gap, as you can never eradicate poverty.

At this point, I would like to highlight that China’s biggest problem remains its income disparity between its many regions, and not just between people in one city like Shanghai, where even the “poor” are still more well-off than a herder in Xinjiang, for example. This situation hasn’t changed since I did my thesis on this subject in 2004. With such a vast territory, in order to stay together and not be pulled apart, China needs desperately to improve income distribution on a *national* level, by bringing the poorer, more agrarian regions in the interior to a standard of living and an income level more comparable to their wealthier cousins in the coastal cities and provinces. The key to this is of course (i) education in the long-run, and (ii) infrastructure development in the short-run, both developmental imperatives.

I urge you to make a trip to the interior and I’m interested to know your opinions from there. Will you still feel the same way as when you are looking at China through the bright lights of Shanghai? My guess is no.

3) So, the fundamentals are vastly different from Libya, Egypt or Tunisia. Sure, corruption and unhappiness exists everywhere, and it is because the people are occupied by work that they don’t find the time to revolt. I would like to add, also, that it is because of jobs that people find a decent (although not necessarily great) standard of living, enough to feed and clothe their wives and children, and occasionally enjoy some luxuries, that they don’t find the *need* to revolt, at least amongst the city-folk.

Here, I would like to point out that China is a much bigger and more diverse polity than Libya, Egypt, and certainly Tunisia. Even with vast unemployment in the North East provinces, or ethnic unrest in Urumqi, you will not have a revolt large or powerful enough to change things in China overnight. It is just too big, too populous, too complex, too diverse.

4) Lastly, regarding society, do you think that in time, a certain “social norm of behaviour” will evolve in China to make society self-regulating? In this regard, I am thinking Japan. Competing against 1.3b other people, the need to survive or die is apparent, and that clearly manifests itself in the behaviour of many Chinese, especially in the urban centres, like your driving illustration. This is also true in India. In time, as incomes and standards rise, and people get used to a middle-class life, will society improve its behaviour?
#5 by Wushu on March 29, 2011 - 1:15 PM

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I agree that a widening income gap makes people less happy even if their absolute level of income has improved. As an old Chinese saying points out: to be poor is fine, but to be unfair is not.

Interesting that you mentioned the interior area of China. In fact in last year I did go to Yunnan and Chengdu (Si chuan Province) for a trip. Maybe because the region that I went to is mostly tourist attractions, I was surprised to see how developed and commercial these cities are. For example, in Chengdu, I see big flagship shops of LV and Prada in the center of the town. At night the clubs are full. I am even more surprised by the purchasing power: a beer in the bar costs around SGD 8 – almost the same price as Singapore. In addition the income disparity in interior area is even more astonishing: you see Ferrari riding on the streets, and on the other side there are wanderers begging for a few dollars to feed themselves.

Social norm of behavior is unsatisfactory in China (like the driving example that I mentioned). I think Japan is an exception in Asia: in Singapore I see a lot of disturbing manners in public such that people sit on the reserve seat in MRT ignoring the old people or pregnant women nearby, or people don’t Q in crowded area. I am not sure whether people will behave better with more wealth – my take is that in the end it probably depends on the resource per capita: in a society with huge population and limited resource (be it MRT space, schools, house, road space, etc), people have no choice but to compete – hopefully situation shall improve with more resource allocated to per head.