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Thread: USA Today news article "Two Faces of China"

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[quote=LEONARDO,267192]Another disconnect comes with all the talk of China's go-go capitalism. U.S. businessmen here talk excitedly about the economic growth occurring before their eyes. They describe opportunities in China, in the world's second-largest economy, with new markets opening and labor still relatively cheap. The stock market here has been red hot. Yet most big industries and even most of the brokerage houses remain government-owned.

Optimism betrays class divisions

Polling reflects a country struggling to define itself. A report by the Committee of 100 (C-100), a group of prominent Chinese-Americans trying to maintain positive connections between the USA and China, found that 88% of Chinese people believe that their country is headed in the right direction while 42% see getting wealthier as a priority.

But beneath this optimism, China faces sharp class divisions. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of a growing number of millionaires and billionaires while poverty — especially in rural areas — remains a fact of life for the multitudes. Up to 200 million people, in search of jobs and schools, have rushed from impoverished countryside to big cities. But many drift from one low-paying job to another and struggle for basics such as housing. The legal system hasn't kept up, either. The economy is speeding into the 21st century, yet the legal framework is a vestige of the 19th century or earlier, with political influence and bribes trumping the law.

Even the world view of China is shown to be slightly askew after one glimpses the country from within. China is known for its powerful central government, but the local, provincial governments collect taxes, approve business deals and most often enforce the rules of everyday life. They keep the wheel turning.

That gap between the modern face China wants the world to see and the realities at its heart often feeds this global disconnect. The C-100 report found that 45% of Americans have a negative view of China, and 40% of Americans see China's growing economic dominance as a "potential threat" to the United States. But the report shows that much of the American animosity is tied to China's lack of product safety and regulation — issues that have dominated headlines in the USA over the past few years.

A developer here, Vincent Lo, explained that Communist Party officials in the national government and the provinces are judged by the rate of development — new factories, buildings and businesses creating jobs — in areas under their control. But no rewards are bestowed for improving product safety or workers' rights. And that is where the contradiction between China's ambitions and its reality breaks down. A major global economic player must react to the flow of capital as well as the flow of ideas, human rights and public opinion. On that level, China might as well be a walled-in, ancient society. 
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