Paradox called China

Capping the tremendous success of the Beijing Olympics in August was the space walk by the Chinese a month later.

One was a demonstration of Chinese soft power – the display of culture, athletic prowess, Chinese hospitality – the other of their hard power, putting their space programme behind only those of USA and Russia.

The Chinese are justifiably proud of their achievements, which have shown great strides in the last 30 years of reforms and opening up and slowly and steadily inching their way towards super power stardom.

No longer is China the “sick man of Aisa”.

But this pride is not unalloyed. The long shadow cast over the two momentous events has taken more than a little shine from them with the latest controversy of melamine in milk powder hitting them.

This and other food scares are just some of the symptoms of the weakness of the foundations on which China’s economic and other successes are built.
China is impressive with its ability to mobilize its people to tackle large-scale disasters. But often these disasters are man-made or made worse by men!

Just days before the tainted milk scandal, a village got engulfed with cascades of muddy iron ore waste killing 250 people. And before that the Sichuan earthquake in May affecting nearly 100 million people in some way or the other.

China’s infrastructure and social systems seem to have failed to keep pace with its spectacular economic development.
The growth is unstable and is confronted with environment degradation and a ever widening income gap with increasing corruption and poor record of industrial safety etc etc

There is a new concept called “scientific development” – encompassing sustainable development, social welfare, people centered society and ultimately creating a harmonious society.

The Chinese will be disappointed if they expect sweeping reforms as a result of the disasters and incidents that have been happening. Like in India, treating symptoms as they appear seems to be the order of the day still.

Rule of law and institution building with media freedom and civil rights are keep pillars to solve the systemic problems in China.

India incidentally has these and more, and yet is not using its strong fundamentals to surge ahead of China and claim its rightful space in the world.