China ascends only when the people live in plenty

13:43, March 03, 2010


By Li Hongmei, People's Daily Online

China has seen an increasing number of provinces, provincial-level administrative regions and municipalities whose GDP overtakes that of some G20 countries, according to “Provincial Economic Blue Book: China's overall economic competitiveness of Provincial Development Report (2008-2009), released Sunday by China's Academy of Social Sciences, China's think tank.

So intoxicating the result is, that some ranked as China's Top3 or Top10 provinces with the most powerful economic engines go into rapture at the news and some even get completely enchanted with the myth that 'an individual province or municipality in China turns out as rich as a country'. Take the southern province Guangdong, its GDP in 2008 is ranked 16th if compared with the G20 members, ahead of Saudi Arabia, Argentina and South Africa. Some eastern provinces such as Jiangsu, Shandong and Zhejiang also exceed some of the G20 countries in terms of GDP yield.

Meanwhile, the provincial-level municipalities like Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin can even compete with some G20 countries in per capita GDP growth, of which Shanghai gains the position as No. 12 if put in the group.

If calculated merely by the situation of the regional economic development and the general volume of the regional economy, some seaboard regions in China, thanks to their piloting the policy of reform and opening-up in its early days, have all these years increasingly sharpened their economic competitiveness and can now match some G20 countries for the total economic volume. But strictly speaking, even if the economic volume reflects the profile of a region's economic development, it cannot serve as the showcase of the wealth status of the local people.

That said, in terms of wealth level and quality, the local people even from China's economically advanced coastal areas are far from superior to the people of the G20 countries. The scale of the economic development can by no means eclipse the fact that at the time the people cannot enjoy the common good and share a popular progress in accessing wealth and a quality life.

On top of that, the yardstick to judge whether a nation is prosperous in essence is based on whether its people are leading a generally well-to-do life, say, their income and consumption levels, residential conditions, educational and medical resources they can access, and recreational activities they can afford, all of which constitute the basic index of the social wealth and happiness as a whole.

On this basis, it is always a one-sided picture and a near-sighted narcissism to glorify merely the achievements scored in GDP growth while turning a blind eye to the well-being of the general public.

What is noteworthy in China at present is the tendency that the wealth gap between the rich and the poor, and between the economically developed East and relatively backward West, is still widening. The deep-seated problem will be settled, perhaps, through deepening the reforms in income distributions, streamlining and bettering the social distribution mechanism, establishing a sound mechanism for ensuring income increase, and optimizing and upgrading the social security and welfare systems. In so doing, the fruit of reform and opening-up and the refinements resulting from the progress of social civilization can be equally relished by the rich and poor alike.

But with just the ballooning GDP and without the prosperous people, the content of regional or national wealth will, unavoidably, prove empty and flimsy.

In so far as the legal construction and social security system advance, that the people can savor the satisfaction by being offered the equal opportunity for self-growth. Only then will the silhouette of a strong China be discerned, ascending with its increasingly well-off people.

The articles in this column represent the author's views only. They do not represent opinions of People's Daily or People's Daily Online.