Tania Branigan: 30-year journey from Mao to the market
[Tania Branigan is China correspondent for the Guardian.]
Zheng Shiqing lives and works in a small room with an earth floor, in the tiny village of Zhuanshanzi, high up a twisting mountain road. The padded curtain in place of a door does little to keep the winter at bay, and his breath curls white through the air. He has heart problems and should retire but cannot - medical treatment has eaten away his meagre savings. His sons are unemployed and his family of five largely depends on his 10,000 yuan (£950) annual earnings.
But Zheng, 53, is one of China's winners, one of hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty since the launch of economic reforms three decades ago. "Life is so much better, you can't even compare it - 100 times better than before," said the dentist, who works with a basic drill and little other equipment. "We lived in really crappy houses and had no property. We worked for the big commune and only got 400g (14oz) of food a day - we were hungry. We had maize flour and sweet potatoes; there was meat once a year at spring festival and even vegetable oil was rare. Pigs these days won't eat what we had back then.
"People used oil lamps and we had to carry water from the well. Now there's running water and electricity."
Thirty years ago today, the third plenum of the 11th central committee of the Chinese Communist party opened in Beijing, 60 miles from Zheng's village. All month the state media have feted the meeting and Deng Xiaoping's victory over Maoist diehards as he wrested control of economic policy and launched the reforms that have altered China beyond all recognition.
China was once an economic powerhouse, but by 1978 it was languishing in poverty and isolation.
Now it is the world's fourth largest economy, with endless highways, swelling cities, vast factories and luxurious boutiques. Over three decades, the economy has grown on average by 9.8% a year. Grain production is 65% higher. Four-fifths of the world's toys are made here and almost three-fifths of its clothing.
The statistics are staggering. But they conceal as much about the reforms as they reveal. Deng famously compared the process to "crossing the river by feeling the stones", and China has frequently halted midstream.
From the first, reform has been a messy, fractured process driven by people's demands as well as political leadership. Farmers in Xiaogang village, Anhui, eastern China, formed a secret pact to divide up the land and farm it separately, risking severe punishment. Deng did not promote the measure until two years later. Meanwhile, Beijing residents turned a stretch of brick into the Democracy Wall - putting up posters calling for opening up and reform.
Dr Hongyi Lai, an expert on the reforms at the University of Nottingham, argues that the dismantling of Mao's economic policies resulted from an interplay of factors: "There were elements of local initiative, such as household farming ... but they led to intense debate within the leadership and it was only through the intervention of reformist leaders that they were allowed to continue and expand," he said.
Now Beijing is studying a new set of figures. The economic crisis is hitting China faster and harder than anyone expected. GDP soared by 11.9% in 2007; but in the third quarter of this year, growth fell to 9%. This week, the International Monetary Fund warned it could slump as low as 5% next year.
Exports fell year-on-year last month and industrial production increased by the lowest rate in almost a decade. China's central banker has urged the country to prepare for a "worst case scenario" and President Hu Jintao has described the outlook as grim.
"No, I've never heard of it," said Zheng, when asked about the economic crisis. But when he heard that factories were closing, and migrant workers returning from the manufacturing heartlands to family farms, he grimaced. His sons rely on casual labour such as building homes - mostly funded by wages that factory workers remit to their hometowns. If those dry up, his youngest son's hopes of building a home and finding a wife look even slimmer.
Kelly Zhang is also worrying about the economic outlook, but she and Zheng have little else in common. Born in the same month as the reforms, the 30-year-old has seen only good times. She works in the motor industry, invests in stocks and takes holidays in Europe. She and her husband have no dependants and their monthly salaries are more than double Zheng's annual income. But they share at least some concerns.
"I'm traditional Chinese - I save at least half my salary and my husband saves even more of his," Zhang said, strolling past a Prada store in Beijing this week. "We have to; society is different here. We don't have guarantees of healthcare and if we want to have children we have to think about that [too]."
She too is beginning to consider the impact of the slowdown. "I was going to go to Japan for shopping, but I thought maybe with the global economic situation I should save. If I want to buy a luxury watch or handbag, I think - well, maybe next year. That wasn't a consideration last year," she admitted.
For countries in recession, the prospect of 7% or even 5% growth sounds highly enviable. But China needs higher growth than that to provide jobs for all the new entrants to the labour force. Expectations have soared, and - since the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989 put an end to hopes of growing political freedom - the case for the government's rule has rested largely on its ability to provide a good living for its people. Protests are already on the rise and government advisers have warned that economic grievances could lead to mass social unrest. Many remain vulnerable to even small shifts in their income...
Read entire article at Guardian (UK)
Zheng Shiqing lives and works in a small room with an earth floor, in the tiny village of Zhuanshanzi, high up a twisting mountain road. The padded curtain in place of a door does little to keep the winter at bay, and his breath curls white through the air. He has heart problems and should retire but cannot - medical treatment has eaten away his meagre savings. His sons are unemployed and his family of five largely depends on his 10,000 yuan (£950) annual earnings.
But Zheng, 53, is one of China's winners, one of hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty since the launch of economic reforms three decades ago. "Life is so much better, you can't even compare it - 100 times better than before," said the dentist, who works with a basic drill and little other equipment. "We lived in really crappy houses and had no property. We worked for the big commune and only got 400g (14oz) of food a day - we were hungry. We had maize flour and sweet potatoes; there was meat once a year at spring festival and even vegetable oil was rare. Pigs these days won't eat what we had back then.
"People used oil lamps and we had to carry water from the well. Now there's running water and electricity."
Thirty years ago today, the third plenum of the 11th central committee of the Chinese Communist party opened in Beijing, 60 miles from Zheng's village. All month the state media have feted the meeting and Deng Xiaoping's victory over Maoist diehards as he wrested control of economic policy and launched the reforms that have altered China beyond all recognition.
China was once an economic powerhouse, but by 1978 it was languishing in poverty and isolation.
Now it is the world's fourth largest economy, with endless highways, swelling cities, vast factories and luxurious boutiques. Over three decades, the economy has grown on average by 9.8% a year. Grain production is 65% higher. Four-fifths of the world's toys are made here and almost three-fifths of its clothing.
The statistics are staggering. But they conceal as much about the reforms as they reveal. Deng famously compared the process to "crossing the river by feeling the stones", and China has frequently halted midstream.
From the first, reform has been a messy, fractured process driven by people's demands as well as political leadership. Farmers in Xiaogang village, Anhui, eastern China, formed a secret pact to divide up the land and farm it separately, risking severe punishment. Deng did not promote the measure until two years later. Meanwhile, Beijing residents turned a stretch of brick into the Democracy Wall - putting up posters calling for opening up and reform.
Dr Hongyi Lai, an expert on the reforms at the University of Nottingham, argues that the dismantling of Mao's economic policies resulted from an interplay of factors: "There were elements of local initiative, such as household farming ... but they led to intense debate within the leadership and it was only through the intervention of reformist leaders that they were allowed to continue and expand," he said.
Now Beijing is studying a new set of figures. The economic crisis is hitting China faster and harder than anyone expected. GDP soared by 11.9% in 2007; but in the third quarter of this year, growth fell to 9%. This week, the International Monetary Fund warned it could slump as low as 5% next year.
Exports fell year-on-year last month and industrial production increased by the lowest rate in almost a decade. China's central banker has urged the country to prepare for a "worst case scenario" and President Hu Jintao has described the outlook as grim.
"No, I've never heard of it," said Zheng, when asked about the economic crisis. But when he heard that factories were closing, and migrant workers returning from the manufacturing heartlands to family farms, he grimaced. His sons rely on casual labour such as building homes - mostly funded by wages that factory workers remit to their hometowns. If those dry up, his youngest son's hopes of building a home and finding a wife look even slimmer.
Kelly Zhang is also worrying about the economic outlook, but she and Zheng have little else in common. Born in the same month as the reforms, the 30-year-old has seen only good times. She works in the motor industry, invests in stocks and takes holidays in Europe. She and her husband have no dependants and their monthly salaries are more than double Zheng's annual income. But they share at least some concerns.
"I'm traditional Chinese - I save at least half my salary and my husband saves even more of his," Zhang said, strolling past a Prada store in Beijing this week. "We have to; society is different here. We don't have guarantees of healthcare and if we want to have children we have to think about that [too]."
She too is beginning to consider the impact of the slowdown. "I was going to go to Japan for shopping, but I thought maybe with the global economic situation I should save. If I want to buy a luxury watch or handbag, I think - well, maybe next year. That wasn't a consideration last year," she admitted.
For countries in recession, the prospect of 7% or even 5% growth sounds highly enviable. But China needs higher growth than that to provide jobs for all the new entrants to the labour force. Expectations have soared, and - since the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989 put an end to hopes of growing political freedom - the case for the government's rule has rested largely on its ability to provide a good living for its people. Protests are already on the rise and government advisers have warned that economic grievances could lead to mass social unrest. Many remain vulnerable to even small shifts in their income...