THE CONSEQUENCES FOR CHINA

The changes in China affect all areas of life and cannot be ignored: even the taxi drivers in the major Chinese cities are finding it increasingly difficult not to lose their way in cityscapes that change on a daily basis. A transformation without precedent is underway and those Chinese who can afford the turnaround are welcoming it with open arms – whatever the cost. While prices rise and the majority of the approx. 1.3 billion Chinese are becoming increasingly impoverished, consumer spending amongst the growing middle classes appears to be escalating exorbitantly. Finally they want to have the life that has long been the standard elsewhere on the globe: holidays, expensive weddings, branded goods from the West and a good education for their children – all of this costs money but is indispensable for those who wish to be winners in this boom economy.
Economic success has brought optimism to China. More than 75 per cent of Chinese people are currently convinced that their personal situation will improve. This is the result of a global survey of 17 selected countries in which no industrial nation achieved more than 48% (USA). China is the world champion of confidence – according to the results of the Pew Research Center in Washington D.C. Gone are the days when Chinese people abroad pretended to be Japanese out of shame. Nowadays people are more proud than ever to belong to the ambitious Chinese people.

A film that does not first and foremost convey information, but instead portrays people’s emotions and stories: what makes them happy, what scares them, the loss of their jobs and with them their identity, their visions for the future, their hopes and dreams.

The notion that capitalism is a “colonial exploitation system” has likewise been consigned to the dustbin of history. Instead more and more Chinese people are enjoying the market economy; it promises them prosperity as we know it in Germany, the home of the Mercedes, which is the kind of standard they aspire to even if the lifestyles and work practices of the Germans leave them somewhat flabbergasted: the fact that a German engineer only works 1,650 hours a year is incomprehensible to them, after all the statutory working year in China is 2,500 hours. Or why the Germans have such an interest in environmental protection and waste their time weeding their gardens for example or cooking for their families themselves is very difficult for the Chinese to understand. Instead they have experts who perform this work faster and better and help people to use their time more effectively and profitably. Because in the “Middle Kingdom” time is increasingly becoming a resource that is in short supply. The tradition, for example, of meeting up with friends and ‘putting the world to rights’ is only rarely cultivated amongst Chinese people. In Peking or Shanghai, breaks like this have come to be considered a luxury. Such musings and comparisons with other countries are, sure enough, the preserve of only a minority of Chinese people. The majority who live on the land and still make up more than 60% of the entire population are experiencing hard times. Farmers and workers, who were taught from the books of Confucius and Mao that all Chinese are equal, are at risk of being entirely forgotten as a result of this current development. They cannot understand why some people suddenly have more money while their situation has hardly changed or even in some cases deteriorated drastically. Thus grows the gulf between the rich and the poor, a gulf which is constantly fuelling the anger directed at the new affluent class and the government. The fear of social unrest is increasing; the insurgence that lead to the civil conflict in the South Chinese province of Guangdong in December 2005 was an early herald of problems to come. That situation was due to a dispute about land which the farmers of Guangdong had lost to the state authorities and their real estate brokers, while at the same time arable land all over China is falling victim to the devastating effects of environmental pollution. Contaminated rivers, erosion and desertification are making the very basis of the agricultural way of life entirely impossible in many cases. City life is also affected by this. Thick smog blankets every medium-sized town and puts the health of the townsfolk at risk. The outlook for the future is even bleaker: in 2010, according to the forecasts of the Chinese academy for environmental planning, air pollution will be the primary cause of premature death for hundreds of thousands of people in China’s major cities. According to the World Bank, environmental damage will cost China five per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in the future, a figure which finally forced the National People’s Congress to take the decision in March 2006 that pursuing economic growth with no regard to its cost in environmental terms was no longer an option. Thus it was determined that energy consumption would be reduced by 20% within four years, while water consumption should fall by 30% and contaminant emissions by 10%. These goals, however, do not appear to be feasible given the miserly funds earmarked for the state environmental authority, SEPA. If one considers that the Baden-Württemberg Ministry for the Environment and Transport has an annual budget of 2 billion euros and SEPA is working with a budget of only 30 million euros, then the inadequacy of the funds in China is immediately evident.
A large portion of the total 68 million euros in development aid provided to China by Germany (as at 2005) is also being directed into environmental protection programs. The question however is: for how long more? Most recently, since Angela Merkel’s first official visit to China the debate has raged in Germany as to how Germans should now deal with the “Giant of the Far East”: is China a developing country in need of support or a high-tech country that is to be feared? Opinions vary – now more than ever.