Jean daniel colombani*
Let us remember the time when we could buy everything, come across whatever came from China (made in China) and in their place asked for Japanese, Korean and European…
Now we find only Chinese products and take them unwillingly, with the label (made in PRC).
China has evolved, within 40 years, from a poor country to the second greatest economic power in the world.
But what do we know about the miracle of the Chinese economy?
Four decades ago, the land of the Red Dragon was an impoverished country dominated by rurality, with 30% of the population below the poverty line. The changes began in 1978 when China began major economic reforms.
The agricultural revolution
In the seventies, over 60% of China’s inhabitants lived in rural areas. They were then allowed to acquire land for a small percentage of production, and the rest was placed on the open market.
Gradually, the government freed agricultural production from its control and maintained its own role in protecting farmers, maintaining prices, facilitating transportation and promoting products.
This led to a huge expansion of agricultural markets, which reached 61,000 (what?) in 1986.
Industrial and commercial revolution
China’s government has generalized the agrarian reform model that combines manipulative planning and the free market, so that any company or factory can sell their products on the free market after adhering to government standards.
Chinese companies used the surplus to expand their businesses.
China joined the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and created 4 economic and trade zones with the tax money, so that every Chinese citizen would feel that they participated in its creation.
Chinese companies filled these 4 zones with exhibitions, showcasing many thousands of products.
New cities began to reach out to multinational corporations to benefit from the factories and cheap labour.
In 1990 it opened the stock markets to increase growth over the next decade, at an annual rate of more than 10%, lifting more than 500 million citizens out of the poverty complex.
In the following years, China’s GDP exceeded $11 trillion, and it increased its foreign currency reserves from $11.9 billion in 1985 to over $3.5 trillion in 2016 and became the world’s largest exporter and second-largest importer.
China has four major banks in the world, lends to large states, and each major bank holds bonds worth more than $2.5 trillion.
It is estimated that China mobile is the largest provider of mobile services in the world, with about 835 million users.
Since 2011 the Chinese company haier dominated the world in the field of home appliances and in 2016 the Chinese online store ALIBABA outranked the American WALMART, and became the largest store in the world.
The constructional revolution
Everything China has built within 40 years has surpassed what the United States has built in its entire history. And with the growing need to expand the main cities, China moves forward to build a gigantic city, the largest in the world.
It merges three cities, with Beijing as its capital, to include over 130 million people, equivalent to one-third (1/3) of the population of the European Union.
The revolution in transportation
Rail network: China aims to connect its 35,000-kilometer-long high-speed train network in order to become the largest infrastructure project in human history.
The railway lines carry 24% of its total population and more than 2.5 million passengers use them on a daily basis. The longest train journey in the world is 2400 km. and the fastest train in the world moves at a speed of 431km per hour.
But all this growth has not been without its consequences. And as the former minister of transport used to say: ‘to make a big leap, an entire generation has to be sacrificed’.
The sacrifice began with a high-speed train accident with 40 victims, sentencing the minister to 10 years in prison, and resulting in corrective measures that made Chinese trains the safest means of transport in the world.
China exports its high-speed train technology to Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Latin America, and is working to export it to the US, Russia and Myanmar.
Sea tunnels and bridges
In China’s attempt to connect north to south and west to east, it was necessary to build long tunnels and bridges. One of the notable projects in this regard is the Bohai Strait Tunnel, the longest underwater tunnel in the world- a 123 km. long tunnel in the Bohai Strait, which connected the eastern and northeastern regions of the country, reducing the distance by almost 1,000 km and at a cost of $42 million.
With this construction, China showed that it possesses the latest drilling technology, which led to the country implementing giant projects around the world, such as the tunnel in the Bering Strait, which serves to connect Russia to the USA underwater.
As for China’s longest bridge, it’s the 10 km. bridges being built to connect Pearl River Bay, west of China, with an underwater stretch that won’t obstruct Hong Kong’s busy ports.
The Revolution in Energy Production
The high levels of pollution and carbon dioxide emissions are not the only reason China is heading towards renewable energy. Alongside the economic revolution there was an urgent need for increased energy production of all kinds.
China has become the world’s leading producer of renewable energy with the construction of three axes, having the largest hydropower station, constructing a great wind power station and having multiplied its capacity to generate power from the sun by 100 times in the last decade; and the result is top of the world.
China owns 31 nuclear reactors for power generation, contrary to the global orientation to reduce dependence on nuclear power, following the Fukushima reactor disaster in Japan. At the same time, China is building another 24 reactors, aiming to multiply its capacity by 4 times by 2030, although it puts crowded areas at risk- the issue of nuclear waste management included.
People believe that the Chinese renaissance is based on a different model from that of the West in terms of the nation state and civilized polity, where unity is the supreme political value and the state plays the role of both the spectator and guardian of the thousands of years old Chinese civilization.
Could the Chinese experience be a source of inspiration for adopting its model of state and economic regeneration?
The next world master: This is how Zedong laid the foundation for China’s world domination.
Firstly, let me make it clear that I am in favour of peace and the coexistence of peoples with respect and freedom.
