Zhang Wen: “China is Sick”
Translation
In recent times, catastrophes of both the natural world and the human world have been piling up. For me this is rather perplexing.
Rain water has always been plentiful in Southeast China, so this once in a lifetime drought in and of itself is a little bit unthinkable. In the face of this great drought, what’s even more bizarre is the indifference in the government and in popular opinion. Government emphasis and rescue efforts didn’t start until the middle of this month, and those outside of the southeast have expressed “none of my concern” attitude. My own media outlet didn’t begin full-length pieces on the situation until recently.
Similar to this phenomenon is the indifference to the life of the murdered children in Nanping [a city in northern Fujian province -Ed]. Judging from the current reports, the murderer Zheng Minsheng [who allegedly murdered eight school children] was a failure at life without stable work, and a failure in love as well. He therefore went out to take vengeance on the evils of society. What is impossible to understand, as well as impossible to forgive, is that he chose people weaker still than himself – elementary school victims. These innocent, immature human beings were completed unrelated and harmless to Zheng Minsheng.
There is only one thing to say: China is sick!
The rhythm of life is getting faster, stress and pressure are building up, and the future is unclear. This has caused more or less everyone in society to become infected with a psychological disorder. People are worried about themselves and their own families, all the while gradually losing compassion towards others. When you can’t even take care of yourself, how can you have excess emotional energy to attend to others?
For years, a one-sided emphasis on economic development has led millions on a single-minded quest for wealth and caused the nation the soar, but it has also buried a terrible sickness: the law of the jungle has entered into people’s hearts. The weak are food for the strong, and
fairness and justice are in short supply.
Social classes are dividing and dissolving into opposition. People’s relationships are mostly based on acquiring [personal] benefits and people no longer believe in traditions of mutual help and friendship. In fact, laughing at the poor while hating the rich has become the tone of mainstream society.
The economic successes of the last 30 years are hard to deny, but that people’s moral quality has degenerated is equally hard to deny. The ideas of Confucius, Mencius and Zhuangzi have been damaged almost beyond repair. Slogans like “Putting people first” and “a harmonious society” need to become reality, but the coming is slow.
To destroy is easy, to build is difficult. China is currently in a void. Popular expectations are outpacing changes in [society’s] system, and in their confusion people have no faith to comfort them.
Those foreigners that are unfamiliar with China exclaim, “China is rising!” China’s government is immensely smug as well, ambitiously carving up the world and expanding its own influence. Disobedient foreign companies are kicked out of the country before the government can be happy.
But clear-headed Chinese can only sigh helplessly [at the current situation]: what kind of monstrosity is this [China]! That China is “rising” is a fact, but it isn’t healthy, with ailments both numerous and gravely serious. The people’s lives are currently so-so: not happy, to say nothing of dignified. (Wen Jiabao’s words are genuine and heartfelt, but an old ailment is not easy to cure).
China is sick. Where is the deft hand, where is the magic wand that can stir life in dead wood?
Discussion
Amidst his admittedly cynical take on things, Zhang Wen brings up an interesting but (sometimes) overlooked point. China is developing, but towards what? The idea of a “rising China” is familiar to anyone reading this and it has even entered into popular media discourse in Western countries, but it is interesting to see how often the words “development” or “modern” (发展 and 现代) get thrown around both in the media, academia and in casual conversation without any clear concensus of what that precisely means beyond a rising per capita income. Development apparently just means “this road that we’re on.”
Even 50 years ago, Mao’s wish for China was to “surpass Britain and catch up to America.” In the context of a “rising China”, comparisons and contrasts between China and the United States are common. Calculating if, when and how China’s GDP will overtake that of the United States has almost become a parlor game among economists and commentators. But is the United States “developed” because it has a high GDP, or does it have a high GDP because it is developed? Another view might hold that the United States (and other developed countries) are developed because they have rule of law, transparent government and clean environments. Zhang Wen might argue that the populace needs a certain minimum moral fiber before a country can be considered developed. (Of course, you could also argue that the United States is not developed because it lacks these very things in the desired quantities).
What does it mean for China to “develop”? What could, or should, it mean? Is GDP or PPP the best tool for measuring China’s progress? Are alternative measures of development like the Human Development Index useful for China (or any country for that matter), or are these not “hard” enough? Supposing we had a magic wand to dispense gifts to various places in the world, what combination of traits might we bestow on China before it went from “developing” to “developed”?
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