The Persistence of "Looking at the Bigger Picture"
On the way back from a short journey to see his grandparents, the author was riding a cab from Beijing's train station to its airport on the outskirts of the city. The city, as is the case in most Chinese New Year's, was completely deserted, even on a 10 pm on a Saturday night. The cab driver was a bit overtly joyful of how the normally insanely crowded city can be so refreshingly devoid of human density, making the usually painful drive to the airport (even on the five-lane expressway) a complete breeze with little traffic and fantastic speed.
And the empty roads are just one of several reasons for how he loves an emptier city. He had no qualms about imagining how much the city would be better if the population was much less than the 21 million that roam about its decisively spread-out landscape today. The most apparent one, to him, was the general decline in housing prices that make the capital city such a hard place to be a resident. He spoke of private developers focusing too much on high-margin luxury villas and condos, the best of which easily go up to 10000USD per square meter.
With a small family unit at 90 square meters each, the total price is indeed astronomical. But at the same time, there is no denying that these housing units continue to sell like hot cakes (despite economic slowdown) and as a result, the amount of capital accumulated by the large developers and local governments taxing the real estate sales have compounded at the expense of the average home-buyers. As a wider trend, the transfer of wealth from the masses to the political-business elites is a growing social issue affecting the country's economic and political stability.
On this issue, the taxi driver's response was quite a surprising one. He says that while it would be nice if the accumulated wealth of the business sector can be distributed to the common people by the government, but he fears that, given China's enormous population, any meaningful amount of distribution at the grassroots level is bound to exhaust the state's holdings of financial resources. And by his logic, such dramatic decrease in the state's holdings will trigger immediate decline in China's influences abroad in ways that will be detrimental for productive foreign policy.
Thus, he stills recommends sacrificing individual interests for the greatness of China as a nation as perceived by other states. It is simply impressive how the collectivist mentality of ancient China continues on today despite vast increases in individual economic choices since economic reforms of the late 1970s. The CCP has its work cut out for itself as a major chunk of the people are still placing the welfare of the nation as a whole, as they have for thousands of years under the emperors, today despite many external influences that tell them to value themselves over the state of the country.
"The people of China are a pitiful bunch," the taxi driver continued to remark, "they are always given second priority when the 'bigger picture' is so important." Indeed, all the Chinese propaganda of today on the "dream of a strong nation" would be meaningless if the majority of the people does not take it seriously. But amazingly, many do, and they are willing to contribute to fulfillment of such a vague and often arbitrary concept by being okay with having a few thousand Yuan less in income every month and forego what many in other countries would consider as basic necessities of living.
But the same view of putting the nation ahead is also a logical folly in itself. It assumes that the greatness of the nation and wealth of the individuals are two distinct choices in which selection of one automatically means abandoning the other. Yet, given China's present course of development, it may not be too far-fetched to see both are complementary rather than exclusive. Especially now that the next step of development will emphasize internal consumption by individual consumers, the state need to ensure there is widespread understanding that a rich nation is built by a rich people.
It may take some time for this novel idea to sink in, however. The power of historical tendencies are simply too strong on this. As the taxi driver and the author drove by and commented on the bright-lit skyscrapers that adorn downtown Beijing, both felt small in the physical presence of the state in its capability to foster wealth in the past couple of decades. The idea that growth of wealth and power come from the government is not yet shaken. And as long as the people believe that a powerful nation is equivalent to a powerful people, then the current arrangement cannot be changed, despite the economic shortfall of the individual citizens.
And the empty roads are just one of several reasons for how he loves an emptier city. He had no qualms about imagining how much the city would be better if the population was much less than the 21 million that roam about its decisively spread-out landscape today. The most apparent one, to him, was the general decline in housing prices that make the capital city such a hard place to be a resident. He spoke of private developers focusing too much on high-margin luxury villas and condos, the best of which easily go up to 10000USD per square meter.
With a small family unit at 90 square meters each, the total price is indeed astronomical. But at the same time, there is no denying that these housing units continue to sell like hot cakes (despite economic slowdown) and as a result, the amount of capital accumulated by the large developers and local governments taxing the real estate sales have compounded at the expense of the average home-buyers. As a wider trend, the transfer of wealth from the masses to the political-business elites is a growing social issue affecting the country's economic and political stability.
On this issue, the taxi driver's response was quite a surprising one. He says that while it would be nice if the accumulated wealth of the business sector can be distributed to the common people by the government, but he fears that, given China's enormous population, any meaningful amount of distribution at the grassroots level is bound to exhaust the state's holdings of financial resources. And by his logic, such dramatic decrease in the state's holdings will trigger immediate decline in China's influences abroad in ways that will be detrimental for productive foreign policy.
Thus, he stills recommends sacrificing individual interests for the greatness of China as a nation as perceived by other states. It is simply impressive how the collectivist mentality of ancient China continues on today despite vast increases in individual economic choices since economic reforms of the late 1970s. The CCP has its work cut out for itself as a major chunk of the people are still placing the welfare of the nation as a whole, as they have for thousands of years under the emperors, today despite many external influences that tell them to value themselves over the state of the country.
"The people of China are a pitiful bunch," the taxi driver continued to remark, "they are always given second priority when the 'bigger picture' is so important." Indeed, all the Chinese propaganda of today on the "dream of a strong nation" would be meaningless if the majority of the people does not take it seriously. But amazingly, many do, and they are willing to contribute to fulfillment of such a vague and often arbitrary concept by being okay with having a few thousand Yuan less in income every month and forego what many in other countries would consider as basic necessities of living.
But the same view of putting the nation ahead is also a logical folly in itself. It assumes that the greatness of the nation and wealth of the individuals are two distinct choices in which selection of one automatically means abandoning the other. Yet, given China's present course of development, it may not be too far-fetched to see both are complementary rather than exclusive. Especially now that the next step of development will emphasize internal consumption by individual consumers, the state need to ensure there is widespread understanding that a rich nation is built by a rich people.
It may take some time for this novel idea to sink in, however. The power of historical tendencies are simply too strong on this. As the taxi driver and the author drove by and commented on the bright-lit skyscrapers that adorn downtown Beijing, both felt small in the physical presence of the state in its capability to foster wealth in the past couple of decades. The idea that growth of wealth and power come from the government is not yet shaken. And as long as the people believe that a powerful nation is equivalent to a powerful people, then the current arrangement cannot be changed, despite the economic shortfall of the individual citizens.
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