No idle dreamers in China

It may be “one country, two systems” in politics. In business and in emotional ties, it is any number of systems, but one country. This is China’s strength, the difference between NRIs and NRCs. The non-resident Chinese came rushing to their country’s aid when the call went out. When the time is ripe, Taiwan’s powerful business lobby will be on China’s side. By then, China will have also softened the US to such an extent that it would not want to jeopardise its interests for the hopeless cause of an independent Taiwan.

China is not just patient in dealing with its problems. It is also very conscious of the long-term view and the large-picture perspective. Its officialdom has a motto: “One-time planning, construction by stages, development step by step.” That one-time planning is thekey. It could take in a perspective of 50 years and fit it into a 100-year plan.

It has concluded, for example, that it must be an international player in order to get what it wants. The discarding of the hallowed Mao jacket was merely the outward symptom of the new mood. Today the Chinese leader, diplomat and businessman moves on the international stage with dress and manners that make no one uncomfortable.

Or take their approach to English. When India is discarding the advantage it fortuitously got, China is encouraging the learning of English right across the country. Increasing numbers of bureaucrats and businessmen can now hold forth in English. On the streets, young students from the Foreign Languages University strike up conversations with you in order to improve their speaking skills. Some even carry English-Mandarin dictionaries with them.

The importance the authorities attach to learning English is evident in the remarks of the chief economic planner of Shanghai in the course of an interview.“In Hong Kong, you know English well. You know how to deal with the world. Our English is poor. It’s a problem. But we are working at it. In five years, we will be better than Hong Kong.”

The country already has a successful programme to lure back highly qualified Chinese graduates abroad. Providing congenial working conditions and freedom of research is more important in this programme than giving good salaries.It also has a carefully worked out plan to send students abroad for advanced studies. This year, 2,300 students will be sent to nine countries in addition to 500 senior academic experts who will go for specialised training and research programmes. Those sent abroad by the Chinese Scholarship Council have to sign a contract requiring them to return after completing their courses.

Improving university standards is a high priority. Beijing University is fully computerised. Computers are everywhere and each student is well versed with their use. The entire library has been scanned, bar-coded andmade available to mouse-clickers. All the equipment has been supplied and is regularly updated by IBM. A diplomatic source said IBM had made the same offer to Delhi University 12 years ago, but was turned down following staff protests. So much for democracy.

China’s modernisation drive overrides not only political systems and socialist notions of workers’ rights but also its revered cultural traditions. It was sacrosanct for the Chinese to be buried in China’s earth, preferably in one’s ancestral spot. This was supposed to provide for happiness in the afterlife.

Not any more. In Shanghai, where 130 million people are crammed into 7,000 sq km, a movement is afoot to popularise cremation and sprinkling of the ashes at sea. It is not just that this costs 110 yuan (US$ 13.3) as against 10,000 to 15,000 yuan on earth burial costs; it saves precious land. As one official explanation puts it: “By opting for sea burial, people are helping to preserve arable land for use by living people.”

Officials arethinking up new ways to popularise cremation and sea burial. Among the ideas: building underwater tombs, putting ashes in glass cases that float out to sea, helicopter-borne sprinkling ceremonies. Pragmatism of this kind could not have been the invention of Deng Xiaoping. It must have always been there, integral to the Chinese character.

This and the absence of religious passions that hold back progress help China to make a success formula out of two apparent incompatibles — political dictatorship and economic liberalism. All evidence points to the dictatorship being a passing phase now: they put it to good use in ramming through urban development and other reforms that require a heavy hand. But the very freedoms people have started enjoying under capitalism are going to make democratic processes increasingly inevitable.

In the meantime, the leadership is in a position to set before it and the people an agenda that might sound wishful elsewhere but must be taken seriously in China. It boils down to ameasured march.

During 2001-2005, they say, an 8 per cent growth rate will help China’s overall economy surpass that of Italy, Britain and France and put it in the fourth rank after the US, Japan and Germany. In 2005 the annual per capita income will be around US$ 1,300 (in a nation of a billion plus). By 2020, China’s GNP will be the highest in the world, enabling it to become “a prosperous, democratic, civilised, socialist country.” By the middle of the 21st century “the Chinese people will realise their renaissance and go on to make new contributions to human civilisation.”

Let no one mistake this for an idle dream. This is China. There are no idle dreamers in China.

(The first part of this article appeared on the edit page on January 17, 2000)