China’s Economic Transition to Great Power Status Essay

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China’s galloping economy heralds its emergence as a global superpower in a not too distant future. This frenetic pace of economic development is based on the ancient perception of the Chinese being the ‘Middle Kingdom’ central to world affairs. The humiliation of being carved into ‘spheres of influences’ during the colonial period provided the right plank for China’s leaders to create a new “Chinese nationalism” (Callahan, 200) that posited its faith in the communist-socialist philosophy for the progress of their nation. Realizing the pitfalls of communism, China quickly adopted the precepts of western capitalism albeit with distinct ‘Chinese characteristics’ to initiate a growth rate that promises to make China “the world’s largest economy by 2041” (Wilson & Purushothaman, 10). The single-minded approach for attaining economic growth has resulted in some serious voids which may impinge on China’s future. This essay aims to explain that the single greatest challenge facing China’s economic transition to a great power status will be the socio-economic disparity and imbalances created in the society by this untrammeled economic growth.

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In the early years, Maoist philosophy dictated all Chinese policies. The state was the ultimate arbitrator for all avenues of human existence. According to Saich, “unchallenged by other organizations—, the state assumed an all-embracing role that included defining correct ethical values”(213). These ethical values included the egalitarian principles of communism where private enterprise was shunned and collectivism was the driving mantra. “This not only had a detrimental effect on the quality of rural life but also led to the eradication of intermediary organizations that operated within the market economy ”(Saich, 215). Since the state now controlled everything, corruption was the natural outcome as all power lay centered with a few individuals. This bureaucratic control “undermined social cohesion and trust in officials and laid the basis for the corrupt behaviour by officials that dogs the system to this day”(Saich, 220). So when Deng Xiaoping unleashed market reforms, the centralized nature of enterprise and the roots of corruption remained intact. Ye succinctly explains this fact by stating that “There are a few thousand private businesses here, but are any of them operating within the law and paying their taxes? If so, how many? — They’re always worried that someone is going to catch them out and find evidence of their scams”(252).

The communist system allowed unprecedented latitude for the Chinese government to carry out economic growth at the expense of other socioeconomic factors. The March 2008 edition of The Economist aptly sums up China’s present situation as “The country accounts for about a fifth of the world’s population, yet it gobbles up more than half the world’s pork, half of its cement, a third of its steel and over a quarter of its aluminum”(13). Fueling this growth has been the advent of Heavy industries which are fast replacing the light manufacturing industries. As a result of this shift, many thousand small industry workers lost their jobs with no equitable replacements leading to heightened unemployment. Heavy industries have also put additional stress on power generation. For example, “Steel making consumes 16% of power compared to 10% of all the country’s household combined” (The Economist March 2006, 13). Since 80% of China’s electricity comes from coal, pollution levels are extremely high. According to Elizabeth Economy, China “is home to 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities”(40). So bad is the pollution that over “400,000 premature deaths per year are occurring due to respiratory diseases brought on by pollution”(Economy, 47). Improper water treatment after use by the heavy industries in China has resulted in rendering over half the water in the seven biggest river basins is unfit for consumption. In 2005, over 50,000 protests were launched by citizens against the degradation of the environment. Compounding the problems of pollution has been the almost cavalier attitude of the central government towards the health care of its people. The Economist February 2008 edition states that “the government spends a mere 0.8% of GDP on health (it was more than 1% in the 1980s)”(34). All these factors including rampant corruption have led to an overall degradation of law and order, which the Chinese authorities have tried to stamp out harshly. China leads the world statistics in sentencing people to death. “In 2006, Amnesty International, a human rights lobbying group, counted 2,790 people sentenced to death in China and 1,010 executed”(The Economist, 2008, 22).

The creation of Special Economic Zones and uneven focus on nationwide development has led to an increase in the divide between the rich and the poor. Any traveler to China would be struck by this rich-poor divide which is starkly evident in the glitzy cities of the coastal belt and the rank poverty of the interiors. Poverty has now started manifesting into social unrest as The Economist reports, “Over the past couple of years protests by demobilized soldiers have become a potent challenge to local governments trying to keep a lid on unrest during a period of wrenching social and economic change”(Nov 2007, 35). The same report describes instances of open dissent where “peasants enraged at being turfed off their land by local governments; city dwellers whose houses are being bull dozed to make way for development” (35) are increasingly taking to the streets. These all are signs of a gathering storm that needs to be attended if China wishes to fulfill its destiny as a great power.

Works Cited

Beware of Demob. The Economist. New York. 2007. Vol. 385. No.8554.

Callahan, William A. 2004. “”. Web.

Economy, Elizabeth, C. “The Great Leap Backward?”. Foreign Affairs. New York. 2007. Vol 86. No.5. pp. 38-59.

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Losing Patients. The Economist. New York. 2008. Vol. 386. No.8568.

The Bullet or the Needle. The Economist. New York. 2008. Vol. 386 No. 8562.

The New Colonialists. The Economist. New York. 2008. Vol. 386 No. 8571.

Saich, D Tony. Governance and Politics of China,2nd edition. Basingstoke, Hampshire, England:Palgrave MacMillan, 2004.

Sang Ye. China Candid: The People on the People’s Republic. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006.

Wilson, Dominic & Purushothaman, Roopa. 2003. “Dreaming With BRICs: The Path to 2050”. Goldman Sachs, Global Economic paper No:99. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2021) 'China’s Economic Transition to Great Power Status'. 3 October.

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IvyPanda. 2021. "China’s Economic Transition to Great Power Status." October 3, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/chinas-economic-transition-to-great-power-status/.

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