Thursday, August 30, 2007

China's happy mask


According to secretary general Giles Merritt of the think tank Friends of Europe , “China is mistakingly downplaying its own serious structural weaknesses”. He says the Chinese leaders fail to mention the country's problems because they don't want to lose face. (The Taipei Times: “Underneath China's happy mask”)

The Chinese indeed don't like losing face, but that's besides the point. Many Westerners see China as a rising power, exporting ever more goods, collecting giant foreign exchange reserves and even getting stronger militarily. Most foreign businessmen only go to the big coastal cities. They are mesmerized by the skyscrapers in Pudong and the Olympic village in Beijing. They hardly know anything about the countryside and the poor regions of the country. But you cannot say that the Chinese leaders themselves do not know this, as Wang Yong correctly points out in the Shanghai Daily. (“Western observer fails to see vigorous debate in China over problems”)

China is still a developing country and is certainly not hiding its problems. Some villages still don't have good roads or even electricity. China is developing fast, but it still needs several decades to become a developed country. To have a comprehensive understanding of China, you need to look at both the developed and the underdeveloped parts.

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