Introduction
China is known for its economic growth and development in recent years. However, the country’s government has tremendous debts owed to foreign financial institutions because of the large investments in local newly built cities. The following paper will present a critical appraisal of China’s actions regarding the erection of its ghost cities.
Critical Appraisal
One of the brightest examples of what is called a ghost city in China is the place called the Ordos in Inner Mongolia. The city is situated in the middle of a desert. Its rich infrastructure is intended to place more than a million inhabitants. However, not more than 50 thousand people live here at the moment. Although some of the local buildings are already sold, they remain empty for an extended period. According to an article written by Yu Hong that is called “China’s “Ghost Cities” and a film under the name of “The Land of Many Palaces” by Adam James Smith, the current president of the Commonwealth, Xi Jinping, and other leading politicians aim at urbanization. Their goal is to make every region of China equally developed and modern, unlike it was previously.
The attempts of the politicians to make their territory wealthy and well organized can be evaluated as a positive strategy for China. However, investing a tremendous amount of financial means in the erection of empty cities is somewhat irrational. It seems that the government relies on immigrants to the country that will inhabit the new regions in the future. Moreover, they do not have enough money to build these cities on their own.
Therefore, they take debts from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and attract both foreign and local investors to cover the expenses. Despite all the intentions, the GDP of the ghost cities remains stable. It would be more rational to spend the available money to locate some profitable firms in these regions. This would make citizens of the country think about moving to these areas. Moreover, people lack living space in China’s metropolises.
Their living conditions are not appropriate as their rooms are not larger than six by six meters apartments. To allocate the population among China’s cities, they need the motivation to move there. Nowadays, this aspect is disregarded. Hence the government might not have any money to return to its investors in the future.
Another reason why the process of land urbanization is faster than that of local populations is what is called the GDPism of current politicians. The article that discusses the question of the social reform in China is written by Zhao Litao and is called “China’s Blueprint for Social Reform”. In this piece of literature, it is stated that the country’s ruling party strives to increase the rate of China’s GDP as much as possible. However, regular people do not benefit from this strategy.
Although they have vast districts with the newest buildings, these territories are not used by anyone. Therefore, the country’s GDP rate can be considered abstract. Such circumstances make only indexes grow. In turn, people’s lives remain at the same level. A more rational solution would be to allocate all the financial means among Chinese citizens by investing in their dwellings. This growth of GDP would be visible and significant for local inhabitants. Instead, they have all that money invested in buildings that do not bring any profits.
Conclusion
The city of the Ordos and several other developed rural areas in China are overwhelmed with new buildings that are uninhabited. The government of the country invests enormous sums of money to reach new horizons in the urbanization of the Commonwealth. However, these expenses are not invested rationally because local citizens do not benefit from the newly build empty districts.