|
|
May 19, 2013
|
|
|
|
 China’s Future Up in the AirPosted on Dec 5, 2011
HONG KONG—China has to find a way to continue its rapid growth without choking to death. Literally. When I landed in Beijing last week, the sky was a brownish miasma through which distant landmarks were only faintly visible. The moment I stepped outside the city’s vast international airport, I noticed an acrid hint of burning coal in the all-too-palpable air. The next day, when I went to see the Great Wall, China’s most famous cultural treasure was wreathed in a gauzy shroud of pollution. In Shanghai, the story was much the same. The city seemed to hide itself in an obscuring haze. Skyscrapers revealed themselves suddenly; you got close enough and all at once a huge building appeared. It was as if the architecture had decided to play hide-and-seek. Even Hong Kong’s skies were grayish rather than blue when I landed here Sunday. The last time I visited the city, about 15 years ago, the sky was crystalline. Locals say that smog from the churning factories of southern China often drifts over Hong Kong—nothing like the pall that encloses Beijing and Shanghai, but enough to notice. Pollution is just one of the mega-problems this country must solve as it continues its unprecedented pace of development. One week and change in China does not an expert make. But my solid first impression is that for the foreseeable future, the authoritarian Chinese leadership is going to have to focus attention and resources inward. What they’re attempting is a high-wire act extraordinaire. Advertisement Keeping the gap between rich and poor from becoming a permanent chasm—and a source of social unrest—is another of the daunting challenges that China faces. The government has raised the minimum wage and moved toward establishing a more effective social safety net. But even if the current pace of economic growth can be sustained, turning China into a middle-class nation will take decades. The rich are reportedly feeling vulnerable. Wags in the capital gossip about tycoons who have sent their families—and their money—abroad. Just in case. China also has to manage an unceasing flood of migration from the countryside to the cities. According to the 2010 census, the Chongqing metropolitan area is home to nearly 29 million people; Shanghai, 23 million; Beijing, 20 million; Chengdu, 14 million; Guangzhou, 13 million. There must be housing for all these people, and sewer and electricity lines to service their sprawling neighborhoods, and police protection. Oh, and jobs. There is also the issue of corruption. Dingli Shen, a professor at Shanghai’s elite Fudan University, said that the Chinese understand when officials are greedy, but not too greedy. Some government and Communist Party officials, he said, are “now on the brink of unreasonable greediness.” But according to Shanghai pollster Victor Yuan, the government is doing fairly well. Yuan has been doing opinion research in China for nearly 20 years, and he said that according to recent polling, about 65 percent of Chinese citizens believe the government is responsive to their needs. Yuan said the public’s top concerns are inflation, housing prices, health care, education and unemployment, in that order. His research indicates that the rich-poor gap is a bigger issue for the struggling middle class than it is for the genuinely impoverished. You may want to take all this with a grain of salt, however, because while Yuan conducts privately sponsored surveys, he has also done some work for the government. But I find it fascinating that an authoritarian regime relies on polling at all. Yuan said local governments use his research to measure various agencies’ performance, using the results to determine which programs are working and which officials deserve promotion. I spoke with entrepreneurs, executives and even intellectuals who genuinely believe that the Chinese system, though undemocratic, is delivering amazing results. I think the most visible test will be how China deals with the noxious pollution that is a woeful fact of daily life. What legitimate government fails to secure for its citizens the right to breathe? Watch the air.
 TAGS:
|
Truthdigger of the Week: Sen. Angus King
 . '/' . substr('9780743276351',-6,3) . '/' . '9780743276351' . '.jpg'; ?>)
Email 
Print
Share
Email to a friend
Newsletter 
Like Us
Follow Us
Get Our Feed
Tags|Bazaar|Podcast|About Us|Contact Us|User Agreement|Privacy Policy|FAQ: Comments and Moderation | Google+
© 2013 Truthdig, LLC. All rights reserved.
By gerard, December 8, 2011 at 1:46 pm Link to this comment
Who’s kidding whom? As long as U.S. does comparativly little to nothing about global warming, China doesn’t have to do anything, and as long as China does nothing about it, the U.S. doesn’t hae to do more than its little bit. In this way they both help each other, all the while howling about their “differences” and stirring up rivalry and animosity—the life-blood of capitalism, no matter how thin you slice it.
Report thisBy moonraven, December 7, 2011 at 1:43 pm Link to this comment
This article is just one of many beating the pan for a war—cold or hot—against China.
Same old excrement from the 50s when the newspapers were stuffed with articles and cartoons about how China was a terrible place and Big Bad Mao was out to eat white babies.
The truth was that the gringos had their teeth set for a few that were not white, as always.
Don’t fall for this crapola, kiddies.
Report thisBy Oceanna, December 7, 2011 at 10:48 am Link to this comment
“...comparatively miniscule in population . . . ” Oops, mistake. The population of
Report thisHong Kong is probably comparable with NYC’s.
By Oceanna, December 7, 2011 at 10:28 am Link to this comment
Er, Hong Kong’s sky was crystalline 15 years ago rather than gray like now?
That begs another question—how was the most densely packed city in the
world containing its pollution so well then, in a way that would put major US
cities like NYC and LA that are comparatively miniscule in population to shame?
Realistically, I doubt if China’s pollution problems and carbon footprint far
exceed our own as Mr. Robinson presents. For instance, the US consumes 20%
of the fossil fuels in the world while comprising 4% of its population. The Tar
Sands project, blessed by the US and Canadian governments, has the potential
to exponentially increase carbon emissions and global warming. Of course,
there’s also the devastated Gulf not to mention the US created devastation
inflicted on sovereign nations with DU and massive bombings.
The made in the USA pot shouldn’t call the Chinese tea kettle black!
Report thisBy race_to_the_bottom, December 6, 2011 at 8:53 pm Link to this comment
I was in China a couple of years ago. The air is worse than Lackawanna’s when I was there in the 60’s before they shut down the steel industry. Steel production is dirty business. Back in the 70s, the US rolled about 100 million tons of Steel. I remember that the Soviets were crowing at one point that they had overtaken the US in steel production. Today, the US produces 81 and Russia, 67 million tons.
I just checked. China smelted an astounding 627 million tons of steel in 2010, 44% of the world total! Obviously, a lot of that steel is exported, one way or the other. When we import from China, we export pollution.
Report thisBy moonraven, December 6, 2011 at 12:55 pm Link to this comment
Everybody’s future is up in that same air, folks.
Cut the Cold War crap.
TKhe only folks whose future is NOT are living on otherg planets.
Not even the Inuit are safe—and much less the indigenous folks in the Amazon Basin.
Report thisBy DavidByron, December 6, 2011 at 9:24 am Link to this comment
Polling says the Chinese have a list of issues not dissimilar to Americans (“inflation, housing prices, health care, education and unemployment”) but Eugene after being in the country a whole week now, says he has the real main issue nailed—it’s pollution!
“But I find it fascinating that an authoritarian regime relies on polling at all.”
LMAO. China is authoritarian because (according to Wikipedia) only nine parties regularly get candidates elected—oh and some independents who have similar ideas. Whereas in the US, you know, ......
Report thisBy DavidByron, December 6, 2011 at 9:19 am Link to this comment
This guy is a total idiot isn’t he? It reminds me of “an idiot abroad”.
It’s funny reading. He appears to genuinely miss the parallels with his own country. I love how he says China doesn’t have elections when 5 seconds on Google or Wikipedia would show the opposite.
As I understand it China’s Gini rating is about the same as America’s now, but one is going up and the other down. I notice he conspicuously failed to compare the government approval rating in China with that in the USA.
Report thisBy balkas, December 6, 2011 at 4:29 am Link to this comment
unlike the 99%, china is defending self from the 0001to30% by
manufacturing missiles, tanks, jets, warships. and that causes pollution
and poverty for some of the chinese citizens.
caught between two evils, the 1% and warming, china opted for lesser
evil.
that’s the only efficient method of making the 1% stand up and listen.
and when the 99% obtain tanks or, rather, get some generals onside,
the 1% wld, i expect, wld get excited.
one way of getting some generals to join the 99% is to elect some of
their people to congress.
——————————————————————————————
why did naomi klein pick “disaster capitalism” as a title for one of her
books? i ask that question in the view that the title depicts a fictive
reality.
she shld have titled her book “disaster supremacism and its structure
of governance and society”.
even “disaster religion” wld have been a vast improvement over
“disaster capitalism”.
was klein cognizant of the facts i just posited? or was it an intentional
Report thishelp to the 1%? tnx
By ??????????, December 5, 2011 at 9:24 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
“Gossip about tycoons who have sent their families—and their money—abroad. Just in case.”
It’s not gossip. Is there any other reason that Vancouver’s property prices have quadrupled in a few decades? Many Mainland Chinese homes in Richmond have a father running the business in China.
Report thisBy David J. Cyr, December 5, 2011 at 8:28 pm Link to this comment
The rising China is emulating the collapsing America Inc. model.
If the Corporate States of America wasn’t so Earth destructively engaged in waging resource wars for the oil needed to wage resource wars; in mountaintop removal to maintain coal dependence; in Halliburton hydrofracking to rip the last tiny remnants of gas from stone; and now MovingOn to the fossil fuel equivalent of crack cocaine (tar sands oil)... then China might have a better model to emulate.
Jill Stein for President:
http://www.jillstein.org
Voter Consent Wastes Dissent:
http://chenangogreens.org/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=498&Itemid=1
Report this