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Thu, May 6th 2010, 11:43

Tanit Parada Tur, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, (4)

Not all that glitters is gold! I have great curiosity in what I think is one of China's dichotomies. Although it is giving an image of an "economy-sized dose of superlatives" the main exponent of which is are the Beijing Olympics it is also a country that lags behind in many other aspects and whose rural population is all but middle class. On the one hand more and more articles are being published about China's rise as an economic giant capable of rivaling the US, and the position the US should take in front of these changes in global powers. However, when a friend of mine spent one year in China as an exchange student at University, she returned home with a bag full of surprising stories about China's depressing conditions for many citizens, not only in the city where she lived. She told me something that I found shocking, that China has only one single time zone, leading to absurd situations such as people in the West waking up at 3 in the morning. The general situation in rural China wasn't obviously anything new. However, I didn't imagine that in big cities life would be so hard too. Unfortunately, this seems to be often the case. It was then when I started being much more cautious when reading articles about China. I'm always skeptical with all that T. Friedman writes, and his opinion on Shanghai is no exception. Although he pompously believes in the "diverse, high-value flows of business knowledge" I can't help but considering that the "distorted liberalization in favor of FDI [foreign direct investment] at the expense of indigenous entrepreneurship" as the article points out, is quite more likely to be happening. I think this particular article offers a balanced point of view in this regard and shows that indeed, not all that glitters is gold. And it does this without excluding the fact that there seems to be hope to believe that is a true new business culture emerging in Shanghai.

Sun, May 9th 2010, 15:30

Eva Maria Krockow, GIZ, Ghana, Platinum Contributor (209)

In my opinion, the economic policies in Shanghai favouring foreign investment and preventing the flourishing of national business, point to the confused political agenda and Party identity which have characterised both China’s domestic and foreign politics since Mao’s death in 1978. Marked by a power struggle over succession, the Dengist reform era saw high levels of instability. Party moderates, claiming the deviation from radical Leftism through an opening to the international arena as well as privatisation and decentralisation of the economy, were opposed by more conservative Party members opposing ‘socialist modernisation’ and hoping for a return to traditional Maoist values and policies. The result was repeated policy reversals and rockety economic development, culminating in the Beijing Spring of 1989. The 1990s consequently focused on stabilising the country, but despite the policies’ relative success in economic terms, the question on underlying Party ideology was not resolved. After the student protests and the Tiananmen massacre, the CCP lost both domestic and international credibility and even though official Party support is still high, it is marked by high levels of cynicism. The communist principles have long been replaced by Chinese forms of capitalism. Due to continued references to the official Party doctrine, however, this capitalism is still restricted and produces inefficient and paradoxical policies as can be seen in Shanghai. As long as China’s Communist Party sticks to its confused political profile, any true changes are unlikely to be seen.

Sun, Jun 13th 2010, 07:48

Joe

I agree with Tanit and think that the view of China from a first hand perspective is completely different then the media influenced view and it is completely difficult to tell how successful the actual country is. To me it is always hard to determine what is foreign influenced and what aspects are truly components of the actual country and Shanghai is no exception. Tanit from Ibizia what made you skeptical of T Friedman's views exactly?