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Curzon
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Curzon

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March 10th, 2005

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“China Lags Behind US By 100 Years”

Here’s an article for all those who think China is set to conquer the world:

It would take the world’s most populous country, despite its spectacular economic growth in the past 25 years, 100 years to catch up with today’s developed nations. So says one of the findings of a recently published report on China’s Modernisation by the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS). It says that the country is more than 100 years behind the United States, 70 years behind Germany and 60 years behind Japan. It traces the development paths of 130 nations in the past three centuries from 1700 to 2001.

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I remember discussing China’s superpower potential with Saru in Kazakhstan exactly one year ago after he and Mutantfrog took a miserable 24-hour bus ride from Urumqi to Almaty. Both had plenty to say about the state of China outside the industrialized coast. Although China’s economy might be growing at breakneck speed, the place is a mess. Roads are crumbling; trains are crowded; trash is everywhere; the toilets and sewage are atrocious; the air is so dirty is gives you a headache; and much, much more.

Comments to this entry

Mutantfrog
March 10, 2005
7:52 pm
China definitely has a long way to go, but I strongly question the numbers in this report.

"It says that the country is more than 100 years behind the United States, 70 years behind Germany and 60 years behind Japan."

Please, in what way is Japan 40 years behind the US? I understand that houses are smaller etc, but that's due to geography, not development. Maybe the 100 years figure for China is correct-after all, they're catching to what is (hopefully) a moving target, and it may very well be less time before they catch up to our current level.
Curzon
March 10, 2005
10:00 pm
Japan is technologically ahead of the US on the "trinket" level: cell phones, gadgets in cars, even stuff such household electronics and subway systems. But they do fall short on the big stuff, such as:

* Medicine & surgery
* Sewage -- the US has no "vacuum trucks"
* Computer usage; typing skills in the general populace (how many Japanese did I know my age that could barely type.)
* Industrial safety (witness all the fuss over they shoddy nuclear power safety)
* Powerlines and phone lines in the street! It's a cobweb of wires that would be a disaster in a major earthquake.
* Other infrastructure
Mutantfrog
March 10, 2005
11:40 pm
"Sewage"”?the US has no "vacuum trucks"Â?"

Actually you might be surprised how many private homes in the US, outside of our metropolitan area, have septic tanks that require trucks to come.

But I will agree with you about industrial safety and some other infrastructure. They are starting to bury overhead wires, but JUST starting to. I remember when I visited Shirahama with my ex I was amazed to see that the entire town had no wired in the sky-they had all been buried, and it made the place look SO much nicer. (

But looking at the economic markers that they mention in the article (like agricultural labor) it seems that part of the reason they decided Japan is 40 years behind is because of a general disdain for factory style farms in favor of traditional agricultural practices. Is it fair to call a practice 'behind' just because it isn't American?

On a related note, who else is tired of hideous concrete exterior's of most of Japan's modern 'architecture'?
Curzon
March 11, 2005
12:43 am
My family has septic, but we're out in the boonies and it it naturally filtered back into the earth. That is true for the entire state we live in -- if it cannot naturally filter, you need a sewage system. In Japan, there is pump-septic in urban areas, cities such as Nagoya and Kyoto. EW!
Thes Quid
March 11, 2005
6:51 am
Hooray for China being so far behind. I live in China, and that means more economic opportunities to sell Chinese stuff to the west and vice-versa! For a while.
Justin
March 11, 2005
10:01 am
I'll start fretting about China catching up when I stop seeing people shitting behind phone booths, spitting in my apartment elevator and when the bathrooms have toilet paper, paper towels or working hand driers and the restaurants don't charge you extra for napkins.
Jarrod
March 11, 2005
10:55 am
In Pentagon's New Map Barnett spent a great deal of time talking about how the Hawks were foaming at the mouth to use China as the replacement for the Near/Peer Rival since the USSR is rotting in its grave. Even if the article's numbers are slightly off as has been suggested, and from what a teacher friend of mine in China has also told me, this article makes one wonder how much of a problem there is in the Pentagon from people still in the cold war mindset and resisting the kind of changes that he suggests. If China still has so much to do, we surely have enough money and enough of a technological lead to reform the military and maintain our worldwide dominance.

I also wonder why articles such as this don't make it to the mainstream media. Whether CNN or BBC. THere are many articles about Chinese growth, or articles about citiies famous for producing certain goods etc. However, they do seem to give a false impression, or at least leave out half the facts according to your post.
Curzon
March 11, 2005
4:54 pm
Justin -- awesome comment on China. Pretty much sums up my 1 month trip from east to west China. Wot a filthy, filthy place.
Mutantfrog
March 11, 2005
6:40 pm
Jarrod: I wouldn't say that the impression of growth is really false. Curzon and I started in Shanghai and then went west, away from the rich coastal region. On my second trip, longer, trip to China a year later I spent a couple of weeks visiting many of the major coastal cities, including Shenzhen, Beijing, Dalian, and Shanghai again briefly. It's really like two different countries (more if you include occupied territories like Xinjiang or Tibet, but that's another issue entirely) in terms of development. Until very recently, all of the money has been focused on the 'core' regions of China in the East.

The fact is, while the bulk of the area and population of China hasn't received most of the benefits of modernisation, it may not matter as long as the government can keep them from rebelling. The mere fact of having peasants on one side of the country won't do anything to keep them from developing industrially and militarily, so the potential superpower threat is still there. Actually China has started recently focusing more on development in the central and western regions, partly to quell the peasant protests (which I have actually seen a lot of coverage of in the NYT-their China bureau is apparently one of their best), and partly because development of the far west gives them access to the markets and resources of Central Asia.

Placing too much emphasis on the filth clouds your overall percepeption of what's going on. Yes, even the cities are full of an underclass of illegal migrant workers living in squallor, but don't miss the sizeable and growing middle class that didn't even start to exist until the 1980s.
Younghusband
March 11, 2005
6:58 pm
Some quotes during our China trip to give you an impression:



"If Japan and Mexico fucked, the child would look like this." (about
Urumqi's charm)
"You know what you don't see a lot of here? House paint."
"This has got to be the only place in the world where you can set the snow on fire"

Younghusband
March 17, 2005
3:54 pm
BEWARE the Chinese!

bq. *Man lifts 165lb barbell...with his penis*
A Chinese man has lifted a 75-kilogram barbell for 10 seconds - with his penis. Zhan, 55, attributed the skill to a branch of kung fu, the Yangtze Evening Post said. He said his father taught him the skill to help him get fit after a serious illness when he was 18. He started training by lifting small bricks with his penis, then gradually added weights and extended duration. Zhan, a director of the Hong Kong Chinese Culture Development Fund, said he had no interest in applying to Guinness World Records.
ComingAnarchy.com
April 10, 2005
3:45 pm
IT superpowers and job evolution

"Big news":http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/04/10/china.india.ap/index.html coming from India and China:

bq. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Sunday that China and India should work together to lead the world in information technology, ...