China's Economy from Boom to Doom

What goes up is bound to come down. The Chinese economy had boomed at a breakneck speed and in the race broke its neck at many places.

The Theme Park near Beijing is lying deserted. Farmers are angry. The economic disparity is growing. The common man is fed up of corruption  at  various levels. Small fish are caught in the anti-corruption net but the big fish get away. The Railway Minister was found guilty of multi-million dollar corruption but got away with it by resigning from his post to escape a harsher punishment like incarceration. However, some mayors and smaller fries were executed when found guilty of corruption and misusing their office for private gains.

There are a number of ghost towns in China. The govt built them for se a few years hence but no one is prepared to move into them as the locals oppose the schemes. The real estate market is showing a downward trend. The number of cranes at various construction sites is going down day after day.

The labour is being laid off causing economic problems. Their return to rural China is causing social tension too.

Leaders are at a loss to decide whether to slow down the economic growth rate or to make villages as attractive as  cities by developing agriculture. Some hard decisions have to be taken. Some high Communist Party officials have given up use of luxury cars like the Mercedes Benz and take up use of home made automobiles.

Harder life is in store of future, for both the high and the low. Indeed it is for the leadership to show the way by adopting an austere style of living and giving up the luxurious life altogether. Any slip up in this will aggravate the brewing tension between the rich and the poor. Violence will not be far off as is happening all over the world.

The youth feel frustrated and they are now ready to adopt any means, both violent and non-violent to ensure that they have a place under the sun. Any obstruction to the march of the youth on the path of progress will be resisted by them tooth and nail. The resistance movement to official high handedness is already going on but the Chinese govt does not permit newshounds to cover them Even reports of custodial deaths are trickling out but it is difficult to  counter=check their authenticity or otherwise.

All said and done, now it is crystal clear that China has lost its shine of economic boom. The El Dorado may turn out to be just a mirage. This may be an extremist view of the western media. Nevertheless, the Truth lies somewhere in between the two assessments; one of the West and the other of the Chinese govt agencies. One who wishes to know the real situation may have to dive deep to find it for himself.

By Chitranjan Sawant

Email:  upvanom@yahoo.com