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Shanghai Breezes

On my first visit to Shanghai this week—to give a talk at a business conference—I'm getting a close-hand snapshot of the "China Miracle." Shanghai invites comparisons to New York City, though the Chinese metropolis has twice the population, more brazen pedestrians and bicyclists, friendlier hotels, nastier panhandlers, and the most dazzling nighttime display of city lights I've ever witnessed. (It reminds me of my first bug-eyed visit to Times Square as a kid.)

From reading the Shanghai Daily, I can see that the government wants to assure us that accountability (once notably missing) is now the order of the day. The country's environmental chief was sacked due to a toxic spill that has polluted the water supply in Northeastern China—and soon in Russia. (The government has vowed to "seriously punish those responsible.") A civil servant was sentenced to death for embezzling funds in a public works project. (I wish officials involved in the "Big Dig" project in my hometown of Boston would read this.) And the Shanghai Food and Drug Administration is even cracking down on misleading drug ads.

Meanwhile the farmers have their own issues ... The cotton-pickers are complaining about unfair U.S. trading practices. While they work up to 11 hours a day manually seeding and harvesting, their U.S. counterparts using mechanized mass planting are subsidized by Uncle Sam. I suppose what constitutes "unfair trade" depends on which side of the lake you live on.

Overall, capitalism seems to be alive and kicking in the "People's Republic." Anyone surprised?

John O'Leary posted this on 12/06/05.

Comments

Great post, John.

Posted by tom peters at December 6, 2005 9:31 PM

It is an amazing story. They have a long way to go on many challenges that will will take years to overcome, but it is moving fast as far as countries go.

What is less understandable is the information lock-down. I'll bet this website is not accessable in China.

Posted by Jeff at December 6, 2005 9:40 PM

Sweet!!!

Hmmm... the big dig...

Posted by Olivier Blanchard at December 7, 2005 1:08 AM

A good story for Shanghai.

TO: Oliver Blanchard

I don't think you are totally right,since I am at Shanghai China,and I visited this website for more than ten times._

And this website is linked at my webblog,

http://blog.hexun.com/jimmycui/default.html

,so all of my blog readers could visit this great website if he/she wants.

Posted by Jimmy Cui at December 7, 2005 6:25 AM

Great John...looking forward to debriefing with ya when you get back stateside. Executions for bribes and kickbacks??? Who would be left to govern? Weird to read your news from Shanghai and its successes while overlooking my morning copy of the Detroit News...seems the big three forgot how to play the capitalism game.

Best John...safe travel

Posted by mike neiss at December 7, 2005 6:40 AM

Merchantile fascism lives on in a giant way!

Russia, Japan and neigbors love that downstream China mega-pollution - while O'Leary celebrates "capitalism" and Internet cafe shutdowns.

Read in the last BusinessWeek that on any given day about 25% of the pollution particulate count in LA is from China [must be similar in San Diego, San Fran, Seattle, et al west coast].

China and India are major new forces - however no need to get romantic about China - they must open markets to the USA and others in a rad way - and stop stealing world-wide intellectual property - besides their environmental mortal sins.

Posted by Sean at December 7, 2005 9:29 AM

Pollution is going to be the number one problem in China. Firing a minister may "feel" good, but it does not address the real problem; China does not have a national environmental protection policy and thus has no real controls on pollution or enforcement of regulations. A real Kyoto Accord would address this problem and tie it to free trade agreements!
Agriculture subsidies and tarrifs are going to be the last barrier brought down in the global market tide. It will come down not because of trade however, but because governments will no longer be able to afford them.

Posted by Jack at December 7, 2005 12:32 PM

>they must open markets to the USA and others in a rad way

I wasn't aware they were particularly closed. Have you been there? There are tons of Western products there and the demand for more is insatiable.

And I agree that pollution is a major problem. I suspect that environmental protection, not Lockean political freedom, will do more than anything to drive democratic reform. The average Chinese citizen doesn't really care whether he can criticize the government on TV. But they do care about their health (and especially the health of their one-and-only child).

On a related note, workplace safety is also a huge issue. Coal mining in particular is a deadly occupation. Something like 600 miners have died in accidents this year.

Posted by Derek Scruggs at December 7, 2005 5:53 PM

FYI, try the Bill McKibben article in the current (December) Harper's magazine. It's good reporting, good storytelling ... and does a priceless job on the dynamics of the tensions between the 800 million (!) still backward-rural Chinese and the mad dash into the cities.

Posted by tom peters at December 8, 2005 8:12 AM

In reply to Jack's comment, above: I had noticed that someone from China was mentioned in relation to the environment in BusinessWeek:

BW (12.12.05) has an article about top green companies, "The Race Against Climate Change," http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_50/b3963401.htm
At the end (I couldn't find this part online, perhaps you can. But the online version has a lot of web-only extras, too), there is a sidebar "Green Leaders."

Among those cited is Zhao Hang, President of China Auto Tech & Research Center. BW predicts 300 MILLION CARS on China's roads by 2030, 10 times the number today.

At the risk of going on too long, I'd like to mention the other names listed, they are cool, surprising, and encouraging:
Tony Blair, British Prime Minister
Franzjosef Schafhausen, German Ministry of the Environment
John Browne, Chairman and CEO of BP
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California

Posted by cathy at December 8, 2005 10:49 AM

Derek: a coal mining disaster was in the news over the weekend in China. (Particularly painful to me given the years I spent consulting to copper/zinc mines in Canada.) There also appears to be no shortage of import quotas there, as I read in their papers. Jack: yes, a Kyoto agreement (or equivalent) is overdue, though as an American I canâ€™t complain about THEIR non-cooperation. Safe to say Shanghai didn't have the pollution issue when environmentalist John Denver penned "Shanghai Breezes" in the 70s. Regarding information shutdown in the PRC, I read last summer that authorities there were using Cisco technology to censor email, websites, and blogs. But I didnâ€™t detect anything missing from the world news coverage of the Shanghai Daily, which included an op ed column from former Time columnist Margaret Carlson.

Posted by John O'Leary at December 8, 2005 6:43 PM

Mr. Sean: "China mega-pollution"? Please do read about the US of A regarding pollution. There is data everywhere but you can try the link below and scroll down to 'Environment - Current Issues':

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html

From the document, "the US is the largest single emitter of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels; water pollution from runoff of pesticides and fertilizers"...

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Posted by Jorge De Castro at December 9, 2005 6:42 AM

Thanks John - Tom and Mr. Jorge - bookmarked the link - yes all nations must spare the environment of Mother Earth - spaceship Earth. 45 the average lifespan of a China city traffic cop ... couldn't see across Tiananmen Square when there last year ... hazy pollution

Posted by Sean at December 9, 2005 9:46 AM

i agree, shanghai is very impressive... however does have it's down sides as well.. for example, having to pay money to go into a city centre park, or turning an ancient buddhist temple into a shopping mall of all things!... not to mention the girls hanging around city centre hotels offering 'massage'... all in all a great city

Posted by shavi at December 9, 2005 10:43 AM

Hmmm ... massage - get it every month - the real thing that is.

Posted by Sean at December 11, 2005 10:07 AM

Surprised? Hardly. As an American who's lived in east Asia for the past four years, it's very obvious that Asians are more competitive, more hard working, more studious, etc., than North Americans.

Posted by JD at December 12, 2005 8:56 PM