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| “Where the Chinese Economy Is Headed” |
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On August 20, Professor Yuan Hongbing spoke at a seminar “Where the Chinese Economy is Headed ” in Melbourne . His speech has been modified below for publication. Good Afternoon, folks! There are three opinions regarding economic development of China. One of them considers the Chinese economy to be developing at a breakneck speed, and to be the engine of the world economy. This view suggests that the Chinese economy will naturally create a middle class. This lovely middle class will raise the bar so all 1.3 billion Chinese can enter the door of democracy. Two kinds of people hold this opinion: One is the “foreign Sinologist” who only has a vague understanding of China and attempts an ineffective solution, while the other are the literati hired by the Chinese government. They use the promise of democracy to justify the Communist Party and make its development appear rational. A second common opinion about China’s development is that if its economic development is led by “scholarly bureaucrats” like Hu Jintao, power is beautifully controlled. This theory promotes the idea that current China will last for a long time. From my point of view, the second future is also impossible. Another possible future is that the Chinese economy will cause the collapse of the Communist Party. Is this true? I don’t think it’s as easy as they make it out to be. Let’s analyse these three prospects. The middle class theory uses the development of the economy to effect changes in the development of politics. It is held by scholars of our modern times. Actually, modern scholars are plagiarizing theories from Aristotle in Ancient Greece. At that time, Aristotle thought that a country that is predominantly middle class is the most stable. People who are too rich are easily corrupted and become greedy for power, while the impoverished class rise against society in their discontentment. Therefore, society will peacefully develop when the too extremes are in the minority and the stabilizing middle class is in the majority. Economists who advocate for Economic Determinism changed Aristotle’s theory so that it became: “As long as the economy moves forward, there will be middle class; as long as there is middle class, there will be democracy; as long as there is a democracy, the country will be just and fair.” Why has this then not appeared in China? It is because the premise of a middle class should be based on a fair and uncontrolled capitalist market economy. Only when human nature guides competition and development can there be a peaceful and rational middle class. When the majority of society is part of the middle class, this is truly a beautiful system. However, in China there is no such system. Some people call the current Chinese economy “capitalism.” That definition is confusing. What economy does China really have right now? The current economy in China is based on corrupted power, lubricated with dirty money, and motivated by the greediness of corrupted officials. This kind of economy creates plenty of undesirable phenomena, but no middle class with the proper righteousness, conscience, and will to create democracy. All the rich businessmen in mainland China take corruption to be their birth right. Therefore, once democracy and despotism have their decisive battle, the arrogance of the businessmen will naturally drive them to despotism. The wealth and extravagance of the business class is the result of them creating a “holy” confederacy of miscreants. I believe, therefore, that the idea of being able to create a peaceful and rational middle class under the current Chinese economy is either illusion or deception. Secondly, I’d like to point out that those “scholar bureaucrats” like Hu Jintao, are unable to provide China with the kind of leadership required to navigate these difficult times of rapid change. These people have resorted to flattery since their days in the Chinese Communist Youth League. They are all too accustomed to flattery and lack the strength of character called for to lead in this period of history. Has our Chinese economy truly become more developed? Though I agree with many of Professor Zhang’s critiques, I believe that China has indeed experienced genuine economic evolution and advancement. The rapid economic growth in China is a fact. The problem is that alongside the growth are occurring myriads of social problems at a pace equalling or exceeding that of the positive economic growth. This dual phenomenon is threatening to tear our society asunder. Why do I say so? The majority of Chinese people are not benefiting from such a rapidly increasing economy. There are 1.3 billion people in China, of whom 950 million belong to the peasant class. These peasants represent the vast majority of the workforce fuelling the economic boom—they are the units of production manpower—yet they have little mobility, social or physical, they have no right to own land or organize themselves into labour unions; they live completely without the freedom to guarantee for themselves even the most basic social rights. These peasants have no say in government policy nor are they able to influence the allocation of national funds. They work themselves silly and must stand idly by while the tens of millions of corrupt government officials squander huge sums of money on their three pet causes: 1. The military. 2. Their enormous appetite for wining, dining, gambling and whoring. 3. Projects to prettify various major cities to attract more western investors. These Chinese peasants truly deserve our notice for they are the world’s most pathetic people. They represent a huge portion of the world population yet they possess almost no ability to freely express their views. These people lead lives of utter hopelessness and poverty. To illustrate this I’ll relate something a friend shared with me. He routinely visits a certain peasant village where he has come to learn that no one in the village has died a natural death in the last ten years. How is this possible? They are unable to afford even the most basic medical care, so when someone falls ill he simply commits suicide. How to commit suicide in the least painful manner has become a popular topic of casual conversation among the more elderly villagers. This is going on in China in the twenty-first century. Is such a shocking polarity reasonable? Is it in fact sustainable? There are so many similar stories of poverty and hopelessness. For example, the slavery among peasants, the mine tragedy problem that happens every month, the problem of millions of demobilized servicemen; all these problems reflect the polarity between the nations poor and its powerful, its fortunate and its decidedly not so. This severe class disparity grows in proportion to the pace of economic growth in China. Does this make sense? If economic growth is such a good thing for the country, shouldn’t the huge peasant class be seeing some substantial improvements to their quality of life? This split between the “haves” and “have- nots” is the biggest crisis China has ever had to face. And the situation grows worse every day. This economic growth has also created some of the most venal and corrupt officials in Chinese history. This relatively tiny portion of the population is reaping all of the benefits, indulging in their numerous vices at the cost of peasant lives. Some might wonder why we need such officials. In fact, they are the backbone of the ruling Chinese Communist Party and are a reflection of its nature- this kind of corruption and injustice is intrinsic to the CCP. According to my calculations, the work of twenty-one Chinese goes into the feeding of one CCP official. How can the people of China continue to bear such an enormous burden? The economic growth of China has become tied to its own financial crisis. What do we mean when we say that China has become a “financial black hole?” It means two things: first, is that the money many Chinese people have been saving all their lives is already gone, stolen from under their noses; second, is the shameless plunder of the nation’s resources by the corrupt officials. Another problem born from the rapid economic growth is the massive environmental damage done each day by profit hungry industries let loose to operate without any environmental protection restrictions. The result is that China, historically famed for its natural beauty, is rapidly becoming the most polluted place on earth. Much of this damage is irreversible. So, if we consider the true situation of China’s economic growth, what do we predict for the future…China’s total collapse? This may indeed be our beloved country’s fate if we do not rid ourselves of the Chinese Communist Party that bears the responsibility for this awful mess. We must cast it off and choose a better future for China and for ourselves. So, it has become obvious to the CCP that it is facing a major political crisis, one with potentially devastating consequences. What crisis? It used to be that the ruler of a country was a sovereign power, unimpeachable by the other nations of the world. If a ruler wanted to oppress a certain people within his country then it was his business—short of war, other nations were powerless to prevent it. This is no longer the case. Since the end of WWII a precedent has been set for bringing world leaders to trial for genocide and crimes committed against humanity. Most of us are familiar with the Nuremburg trials that saw international justice carried out against Nazi war criminals. These days, more and more people around the world are standing up to dictatorial regimes, letting them know point blank that they will be brought to international justice for their despicable crimes. The lawsuits filed by Falun Gong practitioners around the world have sent a clear message to the CCP: the leaders of the Chinese government, those anti-humanist dictators, will inevitably stand trial before the court of history! Then what steps will they take to save themselves? The only way that they see is to turn China into a completely totalitarian state—nothing short of absolute despotism. Others who have identified this trend feel that it is a distant possibility; that complete tyranny is still a long way off. The truth is that it is much closer than they think. The community of intellectuals in China have been discussing this very possibility, almost publicly debating the chances of an official despotism in China. Unrestricted Warfare, published in 1999 by two [Chinese??] Air Force colonels, raises the idea that the new type of warfare that the world has already begun to see and is likely to see more of in the future, is a war of terrorism, exceeding all limits of human reason and conscience, with no regulations or rules of fair play- a war where everyone and anyone is a target and no weapon or means is too low to be employed. Perhaps in an attempt to frighten, Chinese General Zhu Chenghu recently claimed that in the event of war with Taiwan, China would not hesitate to attack the U.S. with nuclear weapons. Aggression against Taiwan is clearly a tactic to arouse Chinese nationalism and deflect its severe domestic crisis. A state of war would make it easy for the Chinese government to implement its “Emergency Law,” which effectively paves the way for a military dictatorship. What people fail to realize is that if China goes to war, no nation of the world will be able to remain safe from the conflict. China at war is effectively equal to WWIII. Some might question whether the CCP would dare to wage this kind of war with the threat of U.S. nuclear retaliation. My answer to them is that dictators are seldom rational. Their decisions are almost always abnormal and deranged as opposed to considered and well thought out. For example, in WWII, Japanese Marine Admiral Yamamoto warned the imperial government that a war waged against the U.S. might last one year and then Japan would be defeated completely. So what happened? History tells us that it was the same Admiral Yamamoto that masterminded and led the infamous sneak attack on Pearl Harbour. Likewise, was it wise or rational for Hitler to attempt an extended campaign along the eastern front while the outcome of the western front still hung in the balance? History shows us time and again that crazed despots are not rational beings. So why is the CCP motivated to start a war with Taiwan? Most importantly, they wish to use such a conflict to whip up an immense tide of nationalism amongst the Chinese people. They wish to generate a nationalist frenzy capable of distracting the people from the domestic issues close to their hearts- especially the need for and the possibility of a democratic China. Right now the Chinese people are awakening to the fact that the CCP has duped and murdered them for decades- they are a people ready to overturn the government and cast the CCP aside. If China were suddenly at war, the move for democracy and social justice could lose enough momentum for the CCP to retain its rule. This tactic of using war to manipulate public sentiment has been used before by the CCP against the Chinese people. This was the case when Chinese were forced to fight the Soviet Union for the ownership of Mongolia. The CCP mange to convince the people of China that the ownership of Mongolia was an issue of honour worth fighting and dying for, when in fact it was simply a losing CCP ploy. This very same CCP recently, through its cronies Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, signed the Sino-Russia Border Treaty, relinquishing to Russia over 1.5 million square kilometres of Chinese territory; this is Chinese land that we shall never be able to recover. What traitors they are. The CCP has no real interest in Taiwan per se, it only wishes to save its skin. I say the time is ripe for the CCP collapse. Whether or not the CCP nightmare will soon come to an end depends on our efforts. I sincerely wish that we will choose a bright future for ourselves and for China, and do all we can to rid ourselves and the world of the Chinese Communist Party. Source: www.TheEpochTimes.com Sep 02, 2005 |
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