PureInsight | February 28, 2005
[PureInsight.org]
4. What is the reason behind the China's economic development?
Who should be credited for the economic development these years? If someone insists that the credit should go to the Chinese Communist Party, you need to understand their reasoning. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Communist Party wrecked the Chinese economy. The country was on the brink of collapse. The country would have been in chaos and the Chinese Communist Party would have lost power if policies had remained the same. The Chinese Communist Party had to relax its suppression of its people, i.e., loosen the apron string.
It comes as no surprise that those who benefitted and became rich during that time were those with friends and relatives in high places -- government officials with connections who bought low and sold high. The ordinary people still live in poverty, are at the lowest level in society, and are among the world's poorest.
An important factor, barely recognized, affecting China's economic development is that advanced technology is more productive and thus brings the illusion of progress to society. For example, hybrid rice, chemical fertilizer, technical gadgets that increase productivity, and the introduction of all kinds of modern technology are the core of China's economic development.
Let's just take a look at a shirt manufacturer. It used to be very difficult and time-consuming to sew clothing by hand. Today, with the introduction of the assembly line, a single shirt manufacturing factory in Wenzhou city, an unexceptional Chinese city, could manufacture enough shirts to satisfy the needs of the entire world in just one year. Hasn't efficiency improved substantially? Has the economy not also improved? The Chinese people are hard workers, which has affected economic growth positively. Human history has developed this way, so how can one say the Chinese Communist Party merits praise?
5. What about the price of the economic development?
In China, environmental pollution has already affected the economic development of the entire country. The Yellow River and Yangtze River are drying out. Desertification, the degradation of land into desert, has become a fact in China. Economic development can also be considered suicide for the country. It has destroyed natural resources and could be likened to killing a hen to get the egg. No matter the size of the short-term benefits, the potential for maintaining stability and long-term development has been destroyed.
Let's look at China's agriculture. Today, farmland cultivation absolutely depends upon chemical fertilizers or there will be no crops. Natural growth of crops has ceased to exist. Even application of less chemical fertilizer is no longer feasible. At year-end, after a whole year of backbreaking work, farmers do not break even, as the cost of chemical fertilizer outstrips the return. Can rural economy develop further? The natural ecology has been completely destroyed. Mining is working overtime and the iron and steel industry is overproducing. They are OK for today, but what about tomorrow? It is sad, but true -- the water we drink, the grain we eat, the air we breathe are polluted, and many odd diseases are appearing ever more frequently. These are the devastating consequences of economic development in an eager-for-quick-success-and-immediate-benefit fashion.
6. How about the future of such economic development?
Even now, many economists hold that China's high-input, low-output economic growth and its pattern of development, built upon cheap labor, slave labor and enormous natural resource consumption are gradually entering a dead-end. In the mean time, China is facing many factors that hinder real growth of the economy, such as obstacles to reform in state-owned enterprises, environmental pollution and rigidity of the financial system. These crises can cause China's economy to collapse before the 2008 Olympic Games.
The Joe Averages do not understand the intricacies of economic development. But what we do know is that corrupt officials already have used up half of our bank savings.
It is rumored that Zhu Rongji cried at the economy work hand-over meeting, feeling guilty of leaving behind such a hopeless mess for the new group, even though he had tried his best. We also know that high-ranking officials have covered themselves. They have a foot already out of China and plan to live overseas. They have purchased houses so they can leave China at any moment. Even Hu Jintao, who recently became President of China, told his daughter to become a naturalized U.S. citizen. We common folks are not stupid, and we can foresee the future of China's economy from these phenomena.
In hindsight, exactly as discussed in the "Nine Commentaries," because of the Communist Party's weak leadership, China's economy accounted for 1% of the world's economy in 1949 and even today accounts for only 5% after 55 years of "development." This is far worse than the 40% in the Qing Dynasty of 1793, and inferior to Hong Kong and Taiwan, who have not been controlled by the Chinese Communist Party leadership.
I therefore conclude that only without the Chinese Communist Party's corrupt leadership will China's economy truly develop and China's populace [as a whole] gain wealth.
Translated from http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2004/12/29/30501.html
