Recently, I met a friend of mine and her teenage daughter for a cup of coffee and a chat; and as it goes with old friends who haven’t seen one another in quite some time, our conversation touched on this and then with tremendous rapidity touched on that. As a dutiful aunty and someone who has a vested emotional investment in this teen-age being, whom I’ve known since she was a baby, I directed a number of queries her direction. The conversation between women and the ‘child’ ebbed and flowed until it arrived at a certain point; an impending exchange/visit of high schoolers from Botswana to a high school in Shanghai, China. I knew of this trip from another friend and mother, excited on behalf of her off-spring at this opportunity to witness, partake and experience another place, people, language and culture. She was thrilled that her child would get to see China, and what one person described as the ‘city of cities’; a fishing village that over the course of a century transformed itself into one of the world’s most populous, busiest, most bustling, modern and commerce oriented metropolis.
Thus when this particular mother stated to aunty that the young woman had opted not to experience Shanghai and was totally disinterested in encountering China, let alone Shanghai, I was curious as regards the why-not of it and enquired as to her reasons. And as teenagers will, with their enviable brashness, boldness and confidence, she informed me that; “I don’t want to go to China. I want to go to the States and Europe”. I admit that I was taken aback and thus made mute. A million different motivations for her to go on this journey flew through my head, but with such speed that I couldn’t properly articulate or enunciate them. Her remark however has stayed with me over the last several months, and in hindsight, if I could take back time, regain my balance, my voice and made her sit, stay and listen as to why China matters and why she should have gone on that trip, I would have said this.
In the People’s Republic of China (PRC), an authoritarian one party communist state came into existence in 1949 as a result of a protracted civil war. Estimates put the Chinese population at that time at some 541.7 million souls. At that time the Chinese economy was suffering from the devastating effects of decades of war. Most of China’s mines and factories had been damaged or destroyed. Its infrastructure, transport, communication, and power systems, ranged from poor to non-existent. Poverty was widespread and agriculture; the economy’s mainstay had suffered years of disruption. China could not feed itself and its population was starving. By all practical measures the Chinese economy was near the bottom of the world development scale. Skip ahead some 63 years to present day and one finds a China that has achieved tremendous and unparalleled economic growth and success.┬á┬áGrowth of about 9.7% per annum since the late 1970s has lifted over 500 million people out of absolute poverty, with the result that China alone accounted for over 75% of poverty reduction in the developing world over the last 20 years. Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) adopted its programme of economic reform and opening-up in 1978, China has moved from being a poor agrarian economy to being the world’s second largest economy. The United State’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) predicts that by 2040, the Chinese economy will surpass that of the United States in size.
China has surpassed the United States as the premier foreign investment destination. It has gone from manufacturing only cheap low cost items to being the number one exporter of information technology products. It has the largest foreign reserves in the world, over $3.2 trillion. It is the largest producer of steel and cement. China’s economic rise has required enormous amounts of energy, making it either number one or two in terms of total energy consumed, oil and oil equivalent – crude oil, nuclear power, coal, natural gas and renewable sources such as hydropower.
If anyone of us were to take stock of our possessions, most of us would find that most of the items were made in China. China is America and the European Union’s second largest trading partner; it is Australasia, Japan, South East Asia and Africa’s top trading partner, it ranks first in the same regard with a number of Latin American nations and as a result China has been able to create over 300 million jobs for its people in the last twenty five years. China is no longer an emerging super-power; it is in fact an economic super-giant who economic activities reach every corner of the globe.
With these revenues, China has been aggressive in the pursuit of its own development; building roads, schools, universities, hospitals, research institutes and laboratories. It has educated its population, it has modernised its factories, and it has sought, bought, developed and put in place technological advancements across all sectors of its economy. Its accelerated infrastructural development programmes have translated into the construction of the most modern cities the world has ever seen. Shanghai puts places like New York to shame.
Some of this income has gone into enhancing its military capabilities. Militarily, China is mighty.
The People’s Liberation Army is the PRC’s armed forces and consists of land, sea, strategic missile and air forces. It is the world’s largest military force, with approximately 3 million members, and has the world’s largest active standing army, with approximately 2.25 million members. With a growing emphasis on comprehensive technological modernization, China’s military might is staggering, and its capabilities formidable, so much so that it makes its Asian neighbors extremely wary and Western powers ‘walking’ around in the Asia-Pacifica, tread there with particular care.
There’s no doubt in my mind that in my attempts to persuade this young person that a view of and visit to China would have been to her benefit, that she’d tell me that all the information I’ve imparted thus far is common knowledge. I’d acknowledge this and make it clear that I’d not yet arrived at the core of my arguments, why China is significant.
The intensity and combination of China’s economic and military power have thrust it into the realm of major political player on the world stage, and this is where its sway has most been felt. China is no longer the biggest net borrower, but one of the world’s largest lenders. The PRC who begged others for admittance into the United Nations, is now one of the P5, the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, with veto powers that enable it to prevent the adoption of any substantive draft Council resolution, regardless of the level of international support for the draft such as the PRC veto of a British sponsored resolution that would have imposed economic sanctions on Syria.
For years we heard the Americans talk of a new world order, and now that order has come, just not how the rest of us envisaged it. China is a superpower from the Global South and it has given the developing world a voice, one that cannot be ignored. While like all nations it is self-interested, its interests coincide with ours more often than those of the West. The developing world was to be made in the image of the West, because they taught us, the implementation of democratic peace theory was the only way that we would progress and lead ourselves out of poverty. Socialism and authoritarianism were not prescribed and certainly not sponsored by the IMF, the World Bank or the other internationally recognized institutions of funding and development. The PRC proved them wrong. Moreover, China unlike the other superpowers has not projected its hard power over the rest of the planet, ever heard of Chinese boots on the ground in the Middle East?
My final point to this young black person would have been that the Chinese, like us are people of color in an age that has been dominated by the white-led world. We’ve mimicked their ways, taken on their beliefs and where has it gotten us? China has stayed for the most part true to its culture, its customs and not bent over backwards to meet the conditionalities imposed by the acceptance of Western aid. Besides that it is an endlessly fascinating place. The PRC doesn’t pretend to be anyone’s savior or to have our best interests at heart. Instead they’ve given us relief from the constant politically correct rhetoric emanating from Washington, Paris and London and in that there resides a level of respect we in the developing world have never been shown before. I do not dispute the scope and scale of China’s accomplishments economically, militarily, technologically and politically. My contention is that China did what we were told, what we thought, was undoable, unachievable. So I propose that in what China has achieved and why it matters is not so much the aforementioned, but in the psychological impact of its success, upon the developing world in general and on Africa in particular. We can acquire the development we so desperately want and need, we can find our own homegrown ways and means by which to do it. That is the hope and the message the Chinese ‘miracle’ has imparted to the world and that, is why it matters.
