Reason Number 44 - The Gamblers & The Purpose of Unemployment

`Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 85

“In China’s rush to become an economic superpower, the nation’s leaders have followed Deng Xiaoping’s famous phrase – ‘Let some become rich first’ – by creating an increasingly wealthy and pampered upper class. Deng’s phrase today is more appropriately stated as ‘Let some become richer and richer.’

When Deng Xiaoping opened the doors to China in 1979, he was effectively opening the doors to the world’s biggest casino, and formally declaring that its almost 1.3 billion citizens could step up to the tables and throw the dice.

Deng also said ‘To become rich is glorious.’ And China’s middle classes are enjoying scooping up as much of this type of glory as they can possibly find. That’s why China’s booming cities are becoming temples to conspicuous consumerism. It is why, despite the easy access to fake goods such as Louis Vuitton handbags, many young and well-heeled Chinese prefer to pay for the real thing, at a price which may represent many months’ salary for them and perhaps a whole year’s salary for those in the rural areas. It is why, in 2006, Chinese people bought over 12% of all luxury goods worldwide. Luxury car maker Bentley, for example, has sold more units of its US$1.2 million Mulliner 728 model in Beijing than in any other city in the world. Yachts. Cars. Houses. Jewelry. International travel. They’re all being sought and bought by China’s new rich. 

Not bad for a country that continually claims it is ‘poor,’ often describing itself as a ‘developing nation.’”

Of course it’s this lust for profit that is the direct cause of scandals such as the tainted milk that has killed four children and put the health of fifty thousand more in direct danger. The sad fact is too many Chinese companies put profit above morality. It is a way of business that is deeply ingrained in the nation’s culture. Money, money, and more money. 

Get this: China’s government knew of this problem during the Olympics, but they kept it hushed up. 

That’s just so fucked up. What kind of monstrous, twisted outlook could allow that? How the fuck, how the fuck can the Chinese people be so passive about this? A bit of grumbling in cyberspace – fuck that. Why are they not marching in the streets? Why are they giving their leaders a free pass?

But hold the outrage. I know better. I know perfectly well that the death of a few more children and a lifetime of worries for thousands more children and parents meant nothing to the chance to strut and boast on the world stage. And the death of kids is an everyday thing in China anyhow. It’s no big deal. As long as your precious kid is okay, the rest can be forgotten. So the fortnight of the Olympics, just like the pursuit of profit, mattered far more than any amount of pain, suffering and death. 

For the government it was as much about political pride as it was about money. But despite their belated promises to stop such things happening again, despite Wen Jiabao’s cynical photo-ops with kids in hospital, despite the resignation of Li Chanjiang, nothing will change. It’s just more window-dressing bullshit from the same bunch of criminals and scumbags. And the milk scandal is no more than the flavor of the moment – there will be another one next month, or the month after that. 

Nothing will change until China has political and business leaders who must face public accountability. But, more fundamentally, nothing will change until China learns to value morality more than money.

`Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 86

“But this middle class – and China’s economic miracle itself -- exists by economically preying on the much larger group of China’s generally poor and less well educated rural citizens. China’s growing wealth, in other words, relies on a combination of low wages, high unemployment and foreign direct investment. 

Trouble for China’s labor market can already be seen, as state media reported at the end of 2006. ‘Despite government figures to indicate China still has a contingent of 150 million migrant workers awaiting to be transferred from rural to urban areas, signs have emerged to show that the country’s labor resources [are] on a trend of shrinkage,’ said reports, noting that booming Guangdong Province was already experiencing an annual shortfall of two million laborers. 

One of the reasons behind this impending labor shortage is not, in fact, a lack of people to do the work – it is instead a lack of decent wages on offer. The much trusted American concept of ‘A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work’ has no place in the casino that is China. China’s government in fact needs unemployment to remain high and wages to remain low, and the continuation of China’s economic success is based on the dangerous gamble that the millions of poor will continue to bear this rapacious exploitation in silence.”

Reason Number 43 - Can You Trust a Man to Hold up Half the Sky?

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 83

"In any average human population, natural male births tend to outnumber female births by about 105 to 100, though numbers tend to differ slightly among various ethnic groups. In some areas of China, upwards of 138 boys are born for every 100 girls.

The results of these skewed birth ratios will leave an astounding number of men unable to ever find a woman, make her his wife, have children, establish a home and leave his name behind. Projections on the size of this aberration of nature vary, from 30 million to 43 million in 2010. Other reports put it in a different way, saying that one out of every ten male children born today in China will never find a woman to marry.

Studies have long shown that women have a pacifying effect on men. A man unable to marry will often become restless, violent, aggressive, and will have a destabilizing effect on society. This gender imbalance is what will create the 5th Army of Instability for China, an army manned by upwards of 40 million men unable to find a wife. The level of disharmony created by the lack of the ability to enhance their life through marriage and build a family will fester and cause disruption within society."

That’s a pretty shocking statistic – one in ten males born in China today will not be able to marry. There just aren’t enough women. Now I could make some glib statement as to how that is worrying news for the would-be philanderer, since women will be able to be more choosy about their mates. But of course that’s not true – success in the bedroom is more about social status than mere numbers. Yet that’s really nor here nor there; it’s the sheer appalling social engineering of it, the fact that so many millions of people have been denied a shot at happiness even before their birth, before their conception. They’ll be born into a society where the odds are irrevocably stacked against them. They’ll be born into a world where the most basic of human needs – love, connection – can never be satisfied.

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 84

“This demographic time-bomb is locked in for these men’s lifetime. Even if the government reversed the birth ratio today, these men would still be unable to become husbands and fathers. The vast majority of these men unable to find partners will come from the countryside, where the gender imbalance is highest, and where limited educational opportunities will doom them to unskilled labor that will make it even harder to find a wife.

The creation of the 5th Army is based entirely on the concept of female infanticide. The ‘death’ of millions of female fetuses in the march of time is populating this army with men who quite likely will do incredible harm to the women who have ‘survived’ and been born. Demand for prostitution will increase, the selling of young female child brides, and violence against women, including rape, will create additional instability beyond natural order due entirely to government policies. 

Mao stated in one of his most famous quotations that ‘women hold up half the sky.’ Nowhere in his writings does he mention whether men are equal to their half of the task, no matter how many more of them there are than women. The soldiers of the 5th Army of Instability will certainly not be up to the task, but will seek masculine forms of rebellion as retribution for government meddling in the laws of nature.”

 

Reason Number 42 - Sino-spite

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 81

"Spite is a petty emotion, often driven by a sense of trivial revenge and a feeling of being both wronged and powerless. 

Sino-spite, however, is an act of Chinese political bluster. It is an expression of self-righteousness and strident belief that, for any given problem, someone else must be the cause, the originator of the trouble. Sino-spite currently shapes China’s relations with the world. 

For China, the solution to a problem rarely invokes an official apology, and if it does come, it is seldom conciliatory. China never says ‘We were wrong,’ but instead adopts a more aggressive hectoring and lecturing tone. 

Sino-spite exists most frequently on a government level, though sometimes on a corporate level too. In the political and corporate world of Sino-spite, no criticism of China is justified. Ever. 

Sino-spite is a way of ignoring China’s problems and negating the concerns of other nations. Sino-spite is a black and white world view. There are no shades of gray, no soothing words of understanding as China promises to investigate a problem. In the Sino-spite view of things, the equation is simple: The world is against China. And China’s going to let you know it knows it.

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 82

"Sino-spite is even applied to matters outside China’s borders. At a Foreign Ministry press conference, spokeswoman Jiang Yu was asked a question about political reform in Myanmar (the former Burma). 'China has been insisting the issue should be resolved by the Myanmar government and its people through consultations,' she said. 'The international community should adopt an active and constructive attitude to help Myanmar promote the process of national reconciliation without damaging the nation’s sovereignty and national dignity.' Dignity and national pride come above human suffering. Sino-spite is also self-serving as political policy.

In the us-versus-them world view of Sino-spite, the basic level of care and concern for human suffering is missing. Toys containing poisons that might harm a child? ‘Alarmism.’ Food that does not meet basic hygiene regulations? ‘Scaremongering.’ Concern over human rights in China? ‘Politicization.’ Rejection of China-made technology that does not meet demanding standards? ‘Anti-China prejudice.’

Stiff, inflexible and unyielding, Sino-spite grows out of a government view that is used to demanding, not persuading."