China's incredible development - See it to believe it

China’s not a popular stop for most Western tourists, especially backpackers, even though it has so much to offer. This, in my view, creates a lack of understanding of its incredible growth, especially the political systems which have made this growth possible.  Partly to blame – the visa hurdle that most Western tourists no longer have to jump over for most other countries of the world. Indeed when I first applied for a Chinese visa at the Embassy in Nairobi, I was sent spinning like a little toy top, which was nothing short of massively frustrating, even for myself – a lowly citizen of a third world country, teetering on the brink of “pariah state”. I recovered fast though, and managed to put all my paperwork in place for the second attempt – including an itinerary which detailed out exactly where and at what time I was going to have breakfast every morning during our trip. This certainly recalibrated and then spectacularly beat my expectations. I was issued a “GRATIS” or free of cost visa – the fruits of belonging to a “friendly neighbor”. And while the visa policy is changing – I read an Op Ed in the China Daily where officials are considering a proposal to grant visas on arrival to boost tourism – the window of opportunity is closing fast.

Why, you ask? Now my 17 days in the country were nice – very nice. The Great Wall was magnificent; the Pandas, however lazy, were warm and fuzzy; the acrobats showcased some cool tricks; and the giant electronics markets housed many goods, where haggling was fun – “NO, you joking price”; “You make so much profit, you sell now and go buy new iPhone – But, I already have a new iPhone”. So not many complaints – EXCEPT ONE. WHERE IS THE POVERTY?

Between Beijing, Tianjin, Chengdu, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Urumqi, China was so clean – it was sterile. Each of these cities had a spanking new subway system, and oversized glass and steel airports and railway stations. 7 out of 10 commuters on the subways had smartphones, and I can say with some certainty, that these were not all fake copies of iPhones and Samsung Galaxies (I have taken the liberty to pluralize that word like the common noun). People have obviously become fairly wealthy – there’s a massive, very conspicuous, and fairly “consumerist” middle class, and even a very visible youth bulge, in spite of what you would expect after the one child policy. And the Chinese exchequer has become so rich, it can spend on massive infrastructure projects, which my sense is that it subsidizes to a less than trivial extent – a lot of waste on a very large scale (the Fixed Capital Investment as a % of GDP, to GDP Growth ratio is very low, compared to other fast growing emerging markets). And while this kept the cost of our trip to a minimum, it also made every place look and feel the same.

Now, this was not the case three years ago when I visited Shanghai and Suzhou, all expenses covered by the firm for my week long training to become a proper Business Analyst. I chose Shanghai and Suzhou, over Sentosa in Singapore, Copenhagen in Denmark and even the lovely slopes of Kitzbuhel in Austria – a massive ski-resort facility, in one of the prettiest spots in the heart of Europe, used exclusively by the firm year round for the hundreds of trainings that the firm needs to run worldwide. After more than a year in Dubai, I was fascinated by a different kind of development story and longing to see, hear and smell … well – developing country stuff.  At that time China was emerging in impressive ways, but it was still a land of stark contrasts. They had just finished the Maglev train from the spanking new Shanghai airport in Pudong to the city center. But there was also plenty of raw action – the smog on the highway between Shanghai and Suzhou was partly industrial pollution on a giant scale and partly burning trash – sweet smelling and quite a sight when it blanketed the impressive new skyline like a thin grey veil. We took a loud rickety old Tuk Tuk to go see the “Humble Administrator’s Garden”, and paid next to nothing for it. The slums along the canals in Suzhou felt raw and organic, with putrid smells from decaying raw, organic waste, and clothes hung to dry anywhere there was a little bit of space. This was nothing like the inner city Hutongs in Beijing we visited this time, with their fancy public toilets, one not more than 50 meters apart from the other, and their fancy new solar panels, one on at least every second roof. The Tuk Tuks now have a fancy new look, and even the smog has been controlled to a large extent, with the Chinese state looking to roll out European style carbon cap-and-trade schemes in most of the big cities.

Perhaps we didn’t look in the right places – so I took a 2,000 kilometer train ride from Shanghai to Shenzhen, certain that I would not miss unadulterated parts of the countryside. I had no such luck. There were lots of small farms and smallholder farmers – very picturesque – but all this was completely overshadowed by massive tracts of new housing and infrastructure built anywhere and everywhere I looked. Now some claim that the party has hidden massive slums, especially from the sights of Western visitors – Wiki Answers confirms this, and lists 27% as the population of Shanghai which still lives in slums. But I remain skeptical of this view – I maintain that China has either eradicated, or will in the not so distant future, completely eradicate poverty, which makes it the most amazing development story in history. The Wiki Answers figures, or views along the same lines, seem like an old school attack on the repressive nature of China’s political system, engineered by those who cannot reconcile the incredible development story that China actually is with its political system. Many in America are especially hawkish, and view China’s rise as a threat – Billary Clinton repeatedly comes to my current home continent of Africa, and warns the leaders to stay away from Chinese influence.

Surprisingly enough, Chinese attitudes towards America and the rest of the world seem very well intentioned – peaceful and shying away from policy interference. But while I was there, CCTV (the state run television broadcaster, not the local closed circuit security system) repeatedly and for several days showed images of the carnage in the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin – it might have been the news of the day for one day, but I got the sense that this event got protracted coverage on Chinese TV, at least for much longer than on international channels. Perhaps I was over sensitive to this because of the hypothesis in my head, but it might well have been the Chinese State’s policy to pounce on every opportunity to cast America in bad light. And while the party is trying to contain many other inflows of information, such as those from Facebook, Wordpress and Twitter, I read this very interesting Op Ed in the China Daily around how American films and TV shows, which the party has no reason what so ever to keep out, were tempering Chinese public opinion about America. Most people had a favorable opinion of America – the classic dichotomy, “We like American people, but dislike American Foreign Policy”.

Politics has changed so much, especially with all these technological advances, which have made information flows hard to contain through all the seams – this has completely changed North Africa for example, after the Arab Spring. But it also reminds me of another county, Pakistan, where political and media activism has reached an all-time high over the past few years. I have been back here for the last week or so. Who can see why the two countries, Pakistan and China, have played themselves out in such different ways? “We must maintain Socialism with Chinese characteristics”, a speech by Wen Jiabao while I was in China, and published in more than one newspaper that I got my hands on, while only somewhat substantive, was almost hypnotic in the way that it called for, and repeated calls for, and re-repeated calls for alignment (or rather continued alignment) with party ideology. They (the Chinese) built a high speed train from Beijing to Tianjin which covers 150 kilometers in just over half an hour. The secret? Make the track completely straight, and align everyone politically (clearly a euphemism for what they actually do) to ensure your public land requisition policies and processes make it easy to acquire any and every piece of land which might be required to further the cause of development.

How would we in Pakistan ever build such a railway line? Between our democratically elected President, Mr. Ten Percent, our judiciary with its role in acting as a check and balance headed by Mr. Suo Moto Action, and the Executive led by Mr. Rental Power, the legislation should be easy to enact. Between Khadim-e-Aala, the Tsunami, the Don of London, the military, our active media, and our many ordinary mobs, with their expertise in burning tyres and blocking roads with stones, strong opposition would also be important in creating a healthy democratic system which would fund and implement such a project. And if such a railway line had to pass through the estate of a Feudal or Tribal Baron, the cost of the project would not become prohibitive, because surely the law of the land and the writ of the state would prevail. Even in the worst case scenario, where the Feudal or Tribal fiefdoms decide to blow it up every couple of months to create leverage against the state and the rest of the country, we can certainly seek a “political settlement” to redress “old grievances”.

We need development and we must muster all the “Pakistani characteristics” of our current political system to get it – because for some reason the smell of burning garbage isn’t that sweet here in Pakistan – and trust me, I have had my fix even in the one week that I have been here so far. Two public institutions, in the otherwise really nice and clean locality where my parents built their house, fail to own garbage collection, passing on responsibility to the other, so people have no choice but to burn it. Win-win, you ask? Three days ago a horse cart was crossing a traffic signal on a red light, just as I was crossing the same signal from the perpendicular direction on a green light – I almost collided with it, which would have been a great story. But for some reason, these sights, these sounds and these smells, just don’t feel that exotic to me in this country – I don’t want them. Let’s change them.

A few years ago, the late Ethiopian Prime Minister (Meles Zanawi – who died only a few days ago), was really angry and frustrated after he was having trouble sourcing financing for a large multipurpose dam from international Development Financial Institutions, in that country which is often called the water tower of Africa, and has enough hydropower potential to light up the entire African continent. The story is that Western countries, who control these institutions, and built their own economies on the backs of large multipurpose dams, now don’t want such projects for developing countries because of the negative environmental impact. Zanawi, understandably frustrated, remarked that Western countries want to see Africa underdeveloped forever, so that their tourists can enjoy its poverty. But in Pakistan we have no such luck – with Western tourists almost non-existent in our country, thanks to the security situation we have created for them, and my own double standards, we have no choice but to develop ourselves. No one is left to enjoy our poverty.

Coming back to China – China’s an incredible development story. You need to see it to understand it and believe it. That poverty is fast being completely eradicated – catch it soon, before it disappears. I am already planning another trip, this time to some of the Western, less developed and more exotic States, along the Silk Route and Tibet. I hope I get to catch some poverty twilight glimmers there.