December 11th, China has been in WTO for exactly 5 years. What has happened in the past 5 years?

 

If you want figures, here are some (not quite accurate)

 

As the percentage of annual GDP, imports increased to 29%, exports 33%, while domestic consumption decreased from some percentage above to 11%. Compared to Japan and India, 2 other largest Asian economies, we are now more than open. Behind the dramatic growth figures, the Chinese government might have to pay more attention inwards to solve the emerging problems in social inequility, infrastructure inadequacy, copyright piracy, corruptions etc.

 

There are real problems. When we are getting richer and richer, the inbalances between the wealthy and the blue collars are becoming more serious an issue. It's reported that half of the world's wealth is held by 2% of the population. What is the root of all social revolutions? While the majority of people are diligently working and substantially contributing the economy, but are not compensated accordingly. I was once amazed that millions of laid-off workers left their life-long SOE employers without much arguments. The national consumption level is not determined by the people who are buying LV and Rolex, but the general public. While we are producing more, exporting more for the rest of the world, we are practically consuming propotionally less than 5 year ago. If my beloved grandfather were still alive today, he would tell me that his communist dream did not work out in the way it was supposed to be 30 years ago. That's the bloody truth for the old generations. Luckily, we were born in the 80s, when we had to face up to a gradual change in our society rather being thrown into the water before we learnt how to swim. Yes, I am proud to say we have adapted to our Communism with Chinese features fairly well.

 

Here comes the infrastructure. It might seem to be strange to the rest of the world. Infrastructure has traditionally been deems as return-guranteed industry. However, it did not attract enough investments. Well, foreign investments were once passionate about infrastructure investments in China. The government blocked them out, for good reason of protecting the life-blood of our domestic economy. On the other hand, we had more urgent issues to deal with, for example NPLs of the big banks, NSSFs etc. Simply, no additional resources for infrastructure so that we had to make do. Judging by the pace of our WTO adaptation, I have to say the government can probably get a merit. Simply hope that the infrastructure issue will be eased somehow. At least, I want to drive a car in one of the major cities instead of riding of bycicle, if the former is promised to be faster during the peak hours.

 

 

"Chinese people like to steal". When Bill Gates said that, it did spark our sometime irrational patriotism. Is that true? Tell me how many of us are not using pirate copies of software? It seem to benefit us when our spending budgets are tight compared to the level in more developed economies. However, taking it into the long-term, we might not be better-off by forcing out the domestic R&D spending on high-tech products. Someone might say it is not an issue in China, because we always have the tactics to obtain technology for free. Take the big pay check for a German railway producer (dun't remember the exact name) for example, we were again clever enough to ask for the core technology as a crucial condition for granting the contract. Ya, with the combination a huge market and high growth rate, not many sellers could say no to the Chinese. It only worries the seller that a deal with Chinese would never be possible again in the future. For their competitors, the seller would be accused to do a deal with the Chinese. Cos in that way, the Chinese will be selling cheaper railways alll over the world!

 

Corruptions...what should I say...Shall we make the compensations for our civil servants high enough and the watchdog system efficient enough to cure this tumore? No grey area for various forms of bribery. Great contributions should be rewarded accordingly. But there is another issue of the vested interests on the hands of people in power...cannot think of a way... However, I feel that to restrain the high-level government officials to travel abroad is equal to say that the majority of them are corrupted and have a tendency to flee out of our motherland. Further more, it's a violation of human rights!

 

Emmm...getting bitter...only out of my true true love for my motherland though. Let us see in another 5 years. Wellllll, I will have more grey hair then, I guess.