My gawd how the money rolled in!
The heading above this post is the final line in an extremely funny, but also extremely dirty, song I used to sing during my days at sea. Now you might honestly question the relevance of a rather crude song in a blog which comments on current and political affairs; but if you read on a while, all shall be revealed.
Some time back, I wrote a small polemic on my own site about the pernicious practice of moving factories and production to China, and how we, as a nation and as part of the West, were slowly digging our own economic graves, before being buried by a resurgent Communist China. many ridiculed me then, and perhaps more will do so now. But I am in the age before the twilight of my life, and I can afford to take a long look at my country, and the mistakes we have allowed to be made on our behalf. I have watched as our political leaders flexed their military muscles in affrays both good and bad; good in Sierra Leone, good in Afghanistan, stupid in Iraq. I have watched and read as the voters ditched a successful Conservative Government because it seemed like a good idea, despite the warnings of the pathways of a Socialist government, all of which has come to be true; and further watched as they were returned to power twice more, through a mixture of voter greed and Opposition incompetence.
But through the ten odd years of Labour, and a good few years of the Tories’ as well, I have watched in stupefaction as the British elite have allowed our industries to be decimated in the sacred cause of ‘Shareholder Value”, and other misleading catchphrases. We see an entire car production facility parcelled up and shipped off to China, aided and abetted by government subsidies to the unemployed, because our laws were easily fooled by five spivs who took the money and then ran away. We see the shelves of our supermarkets and D.I.Y. chains laden with goods marked “made in China”, and we also read of the huge recalls of Chinese-manufactured toys because the paint is laced with lead.
We see the pictures of the skyscrapers in Shanghai and Peking, we read of the huge advances in consumer spending within China and of the super-rich spending habits buying Armani, Prada and Rolex.
But what we don’t see is the hidden rifles and boots of the guards who control the semi-slave labour factories where much of the goods are made which now lie, shiny and tantalising, on the shelves of Europe’s shops. We don’t see the huge advances in electronic surveillance which hold such a sinister presence on such innocent things as computer blogs and comment forums. We don’t read of the laws which make the use of filtering networks part of the deal in doing business in or with China! We don’t hear of the unwritten rule in modern China; the one which states,
“Make all the money you want, buy and sell whatever you fancy, and the Party will back you to the hilt! But don’t stray into political thought, don’t even consider the strange Western ideals of ‘rights’ or even of the heresy known as the ‘Rule of Law’! WE, the Chinese Politburo, will decide what you can believe in, we will decide what you will be governed by, and if you veer from the path, you WILL suffer the fate which we smilingly called down on the fools who sat in TIANANMEN SQUARE”!
Mike Cunningham
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Reader Comments (5)
MC.
I have just one query about your use of the word "resurgent" in describing China.
Resurgent from whence? Until the last 15 years, China (as Napoleon said) has been asleep; and this is the problem: It has had no rampant capitalist past on which to draw experience on for it's new juggernaut economy. In other words it never had an Industrial Revolution as the West had. Now it has, and without any of the constraints that former western Democracies had!
Will Hutton, the China-watcher, points out in the Observer last week that "the real threat to the planet is not the USA- whose policies are susceptible to democratic internal pressure and popular opinion- but China, which is producing so much pollution that by 2030 it will have emitted more CO2 in 25 years than Europe & the USA have done in the last 100 years".
He says that the Communist regime listens to no-one, and he apocalyptically says "It dooms the planet".
But it also bank-rolls the western economy and keeps inflation down.
What to do? It's a no-win situation for both.
MC,
what you say is all too true. I think one of the reasons is that the 'British elite' is not so much British as international. I believe in the advantages of free markets, but there has to be a counterbalance provided by national self-interest. At base, I think the problem lies with the monetary system.
Bernard
The Chinese take the very long view. The twentieth century is just yesterday.
They think back to centuries ago, to the Ming Dynasty and before, when China was a great nation.
China was a great nation before the European nations existed, when America was unknown except to those who lived there.
Yes, the Chinese have been asleep. For the period of the Cultural Revolution, they were worse than asleep.
But yeah, they are very much awake now.
The term "developing world" is used to encompass all that is not North America/Europe/Japan etc. It's a ludicrous term, as Africa is reverting to the bush at breakneck speed, and South America is developing as fast as paint dries on the dampest day.
But China is developing. They're learning the few Western technologies that they have not already mastered. Their engineering schools are full of extremely bright students taking the most demanding courses.
Yes, there is unimaginable pollution in many places. And it is a corrupt dictatorship.
But it is a corrupt dictatorship that is providing jobs, and that is feeding the people. Which counts for something.
Any and all concerns about the political and natural environment there are well taken. Yet...I don't know that this vast, intelligent nation can be politically repressed forever. They know more than you think about how the rest of the world lives. And there is real anger at how so much of the environment has been devastated.
I don't like the transfer of jobs to China, because I want my country's blue collar workers to have access to good factory jobs. We can't all be brokers, lawyers and website designers. But apart from that, and the political concerns, I am largely happy that China is advancing.
Bernard
And one more thing. They actually do have a capitalist past to draw on--the bit of such history that existed in China but also the history of the "overseas Chinese" in Taiwan, Singapore, America, other places. Some of these people don't consider themselves Chinese at all. But a lot of them are really proud of their Chinese ancestry, and a some of these are really successful in business or whatever. Some of these have set up businesses in China, or are trading with China. These overseas Chinese are to some considerable extent part of the Chinese nation. They're a bit asset to China.
big asset