An initiative of the Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World

This cultural exchange, which took place from 9th - 16th March 2001, was facilitated by the Samvad India Foundation. See below for a report by Makarand Paranjape

I must preface my brief report on our experiences in China with a few words on its extraordinary impact. There were four of us from India Prof. Siddalingaiah, Dr. Neeru Vora, Ms. Sudha Sreenivasa Reddy, Mr. Rajib Sarkar besides myself. The one thing all of us agreed on was how much we had enjoyed this trip and learned from it. Nothing we had read or heard about China had quite prepared us for what we experienced. The size, the scale, and importance of China were unmistakable. These factors combined with the hospitality and the warm of our hosts and the people that we met overwhelmed us.

I

Clearly, China is not an easy country to know. For foreigners, in spite of the tremendous demand for English, communication is quite difficult. It is not that we found China to be a closed society. On the contrary, nowhere did we feel like foreigners. Nobody stared at us. We never experienced any hostility. Instead, people were, by and large, friendly. But, everyone minds his or her own business in China that’s what I felt. It is an amazingly well ordered, even obedient populace. And yet, I was struck also by a lack of curiosity. In India, even when you travel to a village, people will gather around you and stare at you. Little children even approach to and touch you. Almost everyone shouts, Hello bye either in English or the language they think you speak. In contrast, I thought the Chinese were less boisterous, more subdued, less likely to reach out.

Another amazing thing that all of us noticed was just how hardworking everyone was. In India, you see lots of people, especially, men lazing about. In villages, you see men seated outside their houses just smoking and chatting. In cities, employees of government or semi-government bodies can be seen having tea, smoking, and loitering around. Lots of people shirk work in India. Not in China. People work extremely hard there, regardless of their job or status. They work without surveillance or supervision. Each one is busy doing his or her job. People in service jobs such as waitresses, bellboys, lift operators, drivers, and so on, are very polite and well mannered. They smile easily and are more than willing to help. What is more, they don’t expect tips at all.

The general level of honesty is very high. We had no sense of crime or cheating at all. A good example of this exceptional level of integrity was the fact that Yifeng’s missing suitcase was not only traced, but returned to him though he did not have a baggage claim for it. The bags were checked in together at Beijing for Changchun on the 14th evening. Neither was Yifeng’s bag tagged, not did he get a receipt for it. This was discovered only in Changchun, when we got there at night. That suitcase, moreover, was unlocked. Before I left, it had not only been identified in Beijing on the basis of the description, but it was sent to Changchun, with all its contents intact.

It was no surprise, then, that except in tourist centres, no one badgered or bothered us trying to sell us things. In the more common shops, there was of course a lot of bargaining. In Shanghai I did see one or two beggars. There were also poorer people in Shanghai and Changchun hiring themselves out for work. But, by and large, the kind of poverty and degradation that we see in India were absent.

Instead of the social hierarchy and the clear class divisions in India, we found greater equality in China. Except for the new economy, which had driven the salaries of top executives to unimaginable heights, the gap between the top and the bottom in any profession was not that high. For example, in Shenzhen University, I asked the driver what his monthly salary was. He said about 1500 yuan. The salary of the President of the University was reported to be about 4000 yuan. So the disparity in incomes was not very high.

One remarkable way in which the Chinese had mitigated class divisions was through a common education system. Unlike India, where the middle and other classes are irrevocably separated by the kind of schooling they receive, everyone in China goes to the same kind of school. There’s compulsory education for all in China. All girls, for example, go up to the 9th standard regardless of where they are or how much they family earns. In cities, we also saw the one-child norm being enforced. Of course, this means millions of abortions every year, but the child that lives gets a very good upbringing. He or she can stay in school till the evening, thereby freeing the parents from the worry of looking after it. In school, the brighter children get better opportunities, but because they’re single children, the disparities are reduced and they grow up to be good citizens.

The first thing that strikes a visitor about China is the tremendous economic progress that is visible everywhere. As we drove in from Pudong airport into the city, we saw large scale rebuilding. The old huts were being pulled down and new row houses built. From up in the air, the area around Pudong doesn’t even look like the East. The houses, with sloping tiled roofs, remind you of Europe. From Beijing airport to the city too we saw this massive reconstruction happening all around. Luckily, unlike India, those who lived in the older houses are sure to get a place in the newly built structures too.

Of course, our friends warned us that what we saw should not be mistaken for the entire reality. There were many areas in the interior, which were very poor. The farther they were from the main road, the poorer they were. The rural areas in general, which we didn’t really have a chance to visit, were considered to be much more backward than the cities. Yet, in absolute terms the poverty in India seemed to be much more than that in China. In India, at least 300 million people are considered to be below the poverty line. These people lack the basic necessities of life. In China that number is closer to 100 million. In that sense, the economic achievements of China were truly staggering.

Nowhere is this new China more evident than in the special economic zones (SEZ). We visited two of them Shenzhen and Pudong. Both amazed us, with their wide roads, high rise buildings, and modern amenities. Shenzhen seemed like a wonderland, a fishing village transformed into a modern city in twenty years. Personally, I didn’t like it that much. It seemed to be created to prove a point to Hong Kong that China could do it too. In the gallery of the Meridian Centre where we visited, the history of the handing over of Hong Kong to China is celebrated and showcased, not the history of Shenzhen itself. Shenzhen gave me the feeling of a place without a history, created suddenly out of nowhere. In contrast, Shanghai seemed like a real city, with an interesting past and a vibrant present. It reminded me very much of Bombay. In Pudong, we saw the old and the new confronting each other across the river. The old city with its neo-classical British buildings and the new, arrogant towers of Pudong all sang the economic might of the new superpower, China.

Sudha and I agreed that one of the costs for this rapid economic development is the environment. An aerial view reveals that there are hardly any trees left around cities and villages; everything has been cleared to make way for fields. In India, by contrast, every village has a cluster of trees. Cities like Bangalore and Delhi are full of trees. Our Chinese friends admitted that there have been great environmental costs for the rapid development of China but, by now, the leadership has been awakened.

Politically, China presents a totally different picture from India. The leaders are not in the news everyday, except for some formal or policy pronouncements. There’s no public airing of grievances, no national debates, no criticism of the government anywhere. The leaders seem to be invisible. And yet, China gives the impression of being better governed than India. The leaders actually seem to be working for the betterment of the people. This is the impression I got from Yifeng about what happened in the past. The excesses of the Great Leap Forward or of the Cultural Revolution have been acknowledged as mistakes. That is why, for Yifeng, a slow and steady progress is much better than rapid changes that disregard the human costs of change. Indian politicians, on the other hand, seem to spend most of their time only in sticking to power or fighting each other. The people and their welfare are forgotten or become incidental to the whole political process.

This brings me to the question of freedom, so important to us in India. Frankly, I didn’t find people in China to be oppressed or gagged. I saw a great deal of freedom on a day to day basis. I thought people would hesitate to speak their minds or would be guarded in their opinions. Instead, I found people speaking openly about most topics. As Yifeng explained to me, only open and public opposition attracts the wrath of the state authorities. That is what happened at Tiananmen Square. Such public opposition does create instant heroes, but does little to change the regime. Instead, slow and gradual change is better. And that is exactly what is happening with economic freedom. In Beijing, for example, we visited a shopping Mall. There young people were relaxing, playing computer or video games, drinking, listening to Western music, shopping and so on, like any where else in the world. We couldn’t see any police or security. It seemed very much like a free country.