Once You Realize, China Craze Is a Hype

Host of 2008 Beijing Olympics, joining to WTO this fall, the only super power that can constraint the U.S., 8 percent of high annual growth rate, surpassing the economic power of the U.S. and Japan in 2015, and huge market and resources… These are the descriptions of China today. In the midst of enthusiastic craze of China these days, there is a book that insists on `viewing China accurately `. This is a book called `China is a hype`.

According to Jasper Becker, who had worked as a BBC and Guardian reporter in China for 15 years before working as a head of South China Morning Post`s branch in Beijing, China is only a secretive country which is maintained by a small number of the most arrogant and the most corrupt people. The book argues that Mao Tse-Tung, Teng Hsiao-Ping, and Jiang Zemin, who promised equality, justice, and the better future, have forced sacrifice of Chinese people in fact, and people have been deceived by it.

The book reports the suffering and fetters of Chinese people, which are covered with the myth and praise of economic growth, and the bad effects of Chinese socialism filled with inequality and contradiction. At the same time, the book, which warns the rootless praise and admiration of China, is like a textbook on `knowing China accurately` to Korea and Koreans who regards China as the only escape exit of politics, national security, foreign affairs, and economy.

There are two views on rising China. One is a theory of `China threat`, which forecasts that China will become a economic, military, and political super power that is equal to the U.S. The other is a theory of `paper tiger` insisting that reform-opening policy of China is only a part of active growth strategy of under-developed country to realize economic modernization.

Many books on China argue that China is watched because China promotes more aggressive diplomacy and security strategy based on miraculous economic growth hereafter. Difference between many other books and this book is author`s objective perspective on Chinese society. The author, analyzing the hardship of Chinese people covered up with successful stories of reform and opening based on 15 years of living experience, does not have an optimistic view on the future of China.

Teng Hsiao-Ping pushed forward reform and opening policy telling the conservative opponents that ``if a room is hot, we have to open the window. If we open the window, harmful insects come in along with cool wind.``

However, a theory that insists on `becoming rich first` brought about mammonism and other problems, such as corruption of the government officials, pollution of environment, disputes among minority races, income differentials among individuals, and unbalanced development of locals. Social convention that disdains law (i.g. `if policy is made from the above, there is a way out in the below`) has weakened the influence of the central government by strengthening the power of local government.

Ruin of coastal cities in the southeast and special economic districts, which claimed to attract foreign investments and technologies, is described in a blunt landscape that speaks about the reality of China (p. 117). Chinese people who play golf, travel overseas, and own automobiles, do not know the fact that average annual income of residents in Guizu, China, is only 420,000 won.

For 14 million teachers who teach Chinese children, use of more than one chalk a day is a luxury. Unlicensed doctors in the rural communities prescribe an anesthetic for diarrhea, hormone products for a cold, and give an intravenous injection for fatigue. This is China.

Excessive westernization, about which Mao Tse-Tung and Teng Hsiao-Ping were worried, presses China as a realistic threat. Bloody violent suppression of 1989 Tiennammun democratization movement has turned to China`s political Achilles heel, and the leaders of China are afraid of organization and power of Faloon Gong followers who outnumbers the communist party members.

Leaders of China who insist on Chinese socialism protest against the West saying that the West tries to overthrow the Chinese society through non-violent means and method. What they regarded as `harmful insect` came back as `dinosaur`.

Foreign companies that invest in Chinese people and China are immersed in `Kodak Syndrome`. This is a simple numerical calculation based on an illusion that Chinese people, who used by a film with 24 exposures, will buy a film with 36 exposures due to the increasing income. This reminds another illusion dreamt by the U.S. businessmen, who were behind Japan in their inroads to Beijing, in 1980s. Those U.S. businessmen had an illusion that if Chinese people drink one bottle of coke a day, it means 1 billion bottles a day.

The fact that China is a strange country to understand is demonstrated by more than 30 toll gates one has to pass if one travels from Shanghai to Beijing, and 2,000 won of toll fee.

Although annual growth rate is more than 8 percent, nobody trusts the China`s statistics. Even China`s Premier Zhu Rongji said that about 2 percent should be cut down. Negative side effects and problems of China may resolved if China`s economy matures and rule by law, not by person, is settled down. However, it is still a vague mirage. China is a fake.

Jasper Becker`s `The Chinese` (2000). Translated by Lee Eun-Sun.

Keum Hee-Yeon (Chinese Politics Professor at University of Seoul)