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China on track? The view from the slow train
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The slow train: The lead engine of train 5640, which pulls passengers from Guiyang to Yuping in one of China's poorest provinces, is decades old.
By contrast, two of China's newest bullet trains are ready to depart Shanghai's Hongqiao Railway Station for Beijing. The journey--covering a distance of that between New York City and Chicago--will take less than five hours.
The United States is not the only election game in town this fall, y'know. They're getting a new set of faces at the top in China, too. The big difference, of course, is that nobody gets a vote over there. The Chinese can, though, talk about the state of the union -- opinions that are often aired in the course of a long train ride, still the most common form of transportation in China. So this week our Shanghai correspondent Rob Schmitz will take two train rides. One, slow-moving, crowded and uncomfortable, in the rural interior. The other, a plush wi-fi-accessible bullet train on the busy East coast. Two trains, two stories about what the Chinese think of their country's economic future. Here's Rob from the slow train.
Train 5640 out of the Southwestern Chinese city of Guiyang has no air-conditioning. That’s what the fans fastened to the ceiling are for... but none of them work. So, on this stifling day, all the windows are open.
A rush of wind signals the entrance to a mountain tunnel -- the world goes black and the echo of the engine makes it impossible to hear anyone. There’s a tunnel like this every few minutes. If you have something to say on this train, you say it fast.
Farmer Tian Jinghe tells me he’s ridden this train every month for three years. He sees a doctor in the big city for a thyroid problem. He has a tumor on his neck the size of a baseball and can barely afford the treatment. The 56 year-old’s already bogged down by his grandchildren -- they were left behind by his two sons, who moved hundreds of miles to the coast several years ago in search of work.
"People in this part of China only give birth to babies, they don’t take care of them," Tian says. "They leave that to grandparents."
This part of China is Guizhou, China’s poorest province. Train 5640 is one of Guizhou’s slowest trains. It makes stops in places like High Plains Village, Fiber River and Six Chickens. Tian lives in a village named Tombstone. A big city like Beijing seems a world away, Tian tells me.
I ask him what the new leadership in Beijing should do for a village like Tombstone -- apart from maybe changing its name.
"The government in Beijing usually makes good policies, but they become twisted by the time they get to the local government to carry out," he says.
Tian says the central government put money aside to modernize agriculture for farmers in his region. He says Tombstone’s local officials used the money to remove entire mountains, flattening the land, making way for a new irrigation system. In the end, Tian says, the irrigation system didn’t work and Tombstone was left with piles of rubble where hills of terraced rice paddies once stood. Acres of farmland were destroyed.
He says it was a waste of hundreds of millions of dollars.
"They didn’t even hire local people to work on this worthless project," Tian says. "They bused them in from a neighboring province. I think China’s biggest challenge is the abuse of power by local officials. Money corrupts people."
That’s not how Long Chengbing and Li Ning see it. The two young men grew up together here but -- like most young people from Guizhou -- went out to find work in factory towns along China’s coast. Long says he spent years at a candy factory.
"We made long, thin candy -- they looked like pencils, but curved at the ends," Chengbing says. "They were red and white, sometimes green and white. They didn’t taste very good. We exported them to America."
I teach Long an English word: candy cane. Long says whatever they were, making them taught him skills he never would’ve learned had he stayed on his parents’ farm.
"And I wouldn’t have learned those skills had it not been for the government developing China," Long adds. "I learned how to manage people at that factory, and now that I’ve returned home, I can start a business here."
Long’s advice for China’s new leadership? Don’t listen to the critics. Keep investing, keep building and keep people employed. Guizhou, he says, is still poor, but he can feel that it’s turning the corner.
A woman sits across the aisle from me. She listens quietly to my conversations with a grin, her arms crossed. She’s in her 30s -- older than the idealistic young factory workers, younger than the cynical old farmer. I ask her what she thinks.
"China’s too big to manage," the woman says. "You focus on developing one region and another region feels left out. That’s what happened in Guizhou. But it’s difficult for China’s leaders."
I ask her what will be the biggest challenge for China’s new leadership.
"Control," she says. "Here in Guizhou, local officials often mess things up. They use government money to make the country side look like the city. It’s all about image. In my town, there are sidewalks in places where it doesn’t make any sense, just because local officials think it looks good. I’m sure leaders at the top would shake their heads at such a waste of money."
I ask the woman her name. Just say that I’m a lady from Guizhou, she tells me.
"Ok, lady from Guizhou," I say, "what do you do for a living?"
Her grin turns to smile as a rush of wind begins to pick up through the car. Sensing another tunnel of noise and darkness approaching, she quickly leans forward and whispers: "I’m a government official."
Kai Ryssdal: We're not the only election game in town this fall, y'know. They're getting a new set of faces at the top in China too. The big difference, of course, is that nobody gets a vote over there.
The Chinese can, though, talk about the state of the union -- opinions that are often aired in the course of a long train ride, still the most common form of transportation in China.
So this week our Shanghai correspondent Rob Schmitz will take two train rides. One, slow-moving, crowded and uncomfortable, in the rural interior. The other, a plush wi-fi-accessible bullet train on the busy East coast.
Two trains, two stories about what the Chinese think of their country's economic future.
Here's Rob from the slow train.
Rob Schmitz: Train 5640 out of the Southwestern Chinese city of Guiyang has no air-conditioning. That’s what the fans fastened to the ceiling are for... but none of them work. So, on this stifling day, all the windows are open.
A rush of wind signals the entrance to a mountain tunnel -- the world goes black and the echo of the engine makes it impossible to hear anyone. There’s a tunnel like this every few minutes. If you have something to say on this train, you say it fast.
Farmer Tian Jinghe tells me he’s ridden this train every month for three years. He sees a doctor in the big city for a thyroid problem. He has a tumor on his neck the size of a baseball and can barely afford the treatment. The 56 year-old’s already bogged down by his grandchildren -- they were left behind by his two sons, who moved hundreds of miles to the coast several years ago in search of work.
Tian Jinghe: People in this part of China only give birth to babies, they don’t take care of them. They leave that to grandparents.
This part of China is Guizhou, China’s poorest province. Train 5640 is one of Guizhou’s slowest trains. It makes stops in places like High Plains Village, Fiber River and Six Chickens. Tian lives in a village named Tombstone. A big city like Beijing seems a world away, Tian tells me.
I ask him what the new leadership in Beijing should do for a village like Tombstone -- apart from maybe changing its name.
Tian: The government in Beijing usually makes good policies, but they become twisted by the time they get to the local government to carry out.
Tian says the central government put money aside to modernize agriculture for farmers in his region. He says Tombstone’s local officials used the money to remove entire mountains, flattening the land, making way for a new irrigation system. In the end, Tian says, the irrigation system didn’t work and Tombstone was left with piles of rubble where hills of terraced rice paddies once stood. Acres of farmland were destroyed.
He says it was a waste of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Tian: They didn’t even hire local people to work on this worthless project! They bused them in from a neighboring province. I think China’s biggest challenge is the abuse of power by local officials. Money corrupts people.
That’s not how Long Chengbing and Li Ning see it. The two young men grew up together here but -- like most young people from Guizhou -- went out to find work in factory towns along China’s coast. Long says he spent years at a candy factory.
Long Chengbing: We made long, thin candy -- they looked like pencils, but curved at the ends. They were red and white, sometimes green and white. They didn’t taste very good. We exported them to America.
I teach Long an English word: candy cane. Long says whatever they were, making them taught him skills he never would’ve learned had he stayed on his parents’ farm.
Long: And I wouldn’t have learned those skills had it not been for the government developing China. I learned how to manage people at that factory, and now that I’ve returned home, I can start a business here.
Long’s advice for China’s new leadership? Don’t listen to the critics. Keep investing, keep building and keep people employed. Guizhou, he says, is still poor, but he can feel that it’s turning the corner.
A woman sits across the aisle from me. She listens quietly to my conversations with a grin, her arms crossed. She’s in her 30s -- older than the idealistic young factory workers, younger than the cynical old farmer. I ask her what she thinks.
Woman: China’s too big to manage. You focus on developing one region and another region feels left out. That’s what happened in Guizhou. But it’s difficult for China’s leaders.
I ask her what will be the biggest challenge for China’s new leadership.
Woman: Control. Here in Guizhou, local officials often mess things up. They use government money to make the country side look like the city. It’s all about image. In my town, there are sidewalks in places where it doesn’t make any sense, just because local officials think it looks good. I’m sure leaders at the top would shake their heads at such a waste of money.
I ask the woman her name. Just say that I’m a lady from Guizhou, she tells me. Ok, lady from Guizhou, I say... what do you do for a living? Her grin turns to smile as a rush of wind begins to pick up through the car. Sensing another tunnel of noise and darkness approaching, she quickly leans forward and whispers: I’m a government official.
On the hard-seat-class slow train in Guizhou, I’m Rob Schmitz, for Marketplace.
China has effective leadership that made things happen. If they plan for high-speed trains, there will be there.
In US, we have something called "election". However, we have to pick one of those professional politicians who are only good at speech.
中国是非常好的国家。四十多年美国的经济有问题，但是中国的经济发展了三十年。中国经济没有发展完，所以有的中国的城市是还不错，有的中国的城市有一点不好。
I am 25 years old. I am an American. I learned Chinese in college. I have a bachelor of science in economics and I am currently pursuing a master of agribusiness in agricultural economics. I began to learn Chinese before 2008, because I predicted that the American model was unsustainable. Endless consumption enabled by growing debt, with little long-term investment or development. What the American model of economics means in the new millenium - in America you cannot even get on a train anymore and take it from one side of this nation to the other.
There are so many things I could say here about American ignorance, the failure of American macroeconomic policy, 40 years of 6-8 year recessions, and on and so forth to attest to why Americans constantly underestimate the Middle Kingdom.
China has its problems, but accusations of corruption as a reason for China's impending downfall are baseless when they come from a society that has embraced corruption in its totality. I have served in the American government, and that was precisely what lead me abroad to China. Because if you honestly believe that the American system is any less corrupt, then you are naive in the extreme, and there is honestly better hope for the Chinese, who see and know their corruption firsthand.
China is faced with the next step of the development problem, a transition into a modern economy. I am confident that in the next twenty years as they progress through the development model they will succeed. China knows that the market can no longer sustain the glut of SOEs. China knows that its fast paced development has come with huge social costs, which is why China's leadership began over a year ago to slow the economy down. Part of that slowdown was driven by the government, and part of China's slowdown has also been driven by a drastic fall in worldwide demand. But do not make the mistake for one minute of believing that China is not capable of marching into the future.
Among the emerging nations they are still the country with the largest economy, and the fastest growth rate. We hear nothing of the economic slowdown in Brazil, or the crash in India, because they are democracies, and as Americans, our media wants to play to our falsehoods, the evilness of China and its government being chief among them.
I worry far more about a day when I must explain to my children, why their fathers homeland has failed so dramatically, while their mothers homeland has succeeded where others predicted failure. The fact you cannot even take the slow train in America, should be pretty decent evidence of that concern...
And furthermore, we as Americans have a chance with China's rise. We can profit off their continued development and their ever enlarging middle class to help revive some of America's dormant industries and put Americans back to work.
Or, as both presidential candidates are doing, we can engage in destructive protectionist policies that create dead weight loss, lead to possible economic trade wars, and cost American jobs.
China is America's solution, not our problem.
Hard-class coaches, not air-conditioned. But note the infrastructure: electrified railroad; concrete ties; heavy welded rail. Train probably had 18 cars, and is obviously heavily patronized. And at fares that make travel accessible. Not all bad.
The Communist Party of the Peoples Republic of China is playing an extremely unstable game. It rents legitimacy by promising increasing economic prosperity (unsustainable in this age of uncertainty) and increasingly hyper-nationalistic appeals to Han nationalism (threatening war with Japan over a couple of uninhabited islands, sees the USA its major trading partner as its primary enemy, and has stated its opposition to unification of Korea under the South Korean government). This is an extremely dangerous set of circumstances that could go ever so horribly wrong.
Kevin: if you read more about history, you would understand it was Japan who escalated tension on "islands". And Chinese do no see US as enemy. People like you in US are seeing a new country that pulled 1.6 billion people out of poverty onto high-speed trains (we only some Acela in Northeast) an enemy.
where is the logic?
Pay a visit to China and you will know better
