China’s rural population is at the bottom of the global commodity chains of both Chinese and transnational corporations. Unhindered by regulations, these companies utilize China’s land and rural labor for the environmentally and socially unsustainable production of goods consumed the world over. While consumers everywhere benefit from inexpensive products and corporate profits, the real costs are borne by China’s most vulnerable.
The Wukan incident reveals the shaky foundation of China’s rise to economic super power: it is built upon an unresolved land struggle with hundreds of millions of lives in the balance. Anything that negatively alters the quality of life of China’s rural majority has the potential to impact the already fragile global economy, sending ripples across the world.
I've been droning on about exactly this basis of China's growing economy for years:
Like the old Soviet Union, China’s economic growth is coming from moving peasants to city factories. And even the most productive peasant turned into the most inefficient factory worker will produce more GDP and bump up national statistics. This is not sustainable. Eventually, established workers must become more efficient for an economy to really take off.
Not that I think China's gains aren't real. They are surely more real than the Soviet Union's apparent progress since China is plugged into the world economy and that limits how much can be faked. But it does mean that simply assuming China continues the same rate of gain and never experiences slow downs or recessions is ridiculous.
Central planning is not the path to economic prosperity. If it was, China would have taken off decades ago under strict Maoist economic planning.
The funny thing is, true Marxists never believed communism could work with reactionary peasants rather than true urban workers as the basis of the revolution. China is creating lots of unhappy new urban workers and angering the true peasants.
UPDATE: Among other problems:
The Chinese workforce will level off in about 2013, perhaps 2014, according to both Chinese and foreign demographers, but the effect is already being felt as wages rise, a trend that will eventually make the country's factories uncompetitive. China, strangely enough, is running out of people to move to cities, work in factories, and power its economy. Demography may not be destiny, but it will now create high barriers for growth.
I wouldn't trade places with China, no matter how many tyranny fan boys there are in the
