China Emerging_ 1978-2008 - Xiao-bo , Wu [72]
The new surreal and ultra-modern CCTV building under construction in Beijing.
A peasant worker who is unable to return home due to the inclement weather conditions. The southern part of China encountered rare blizzards around the Chinese New Year, 2008.
is closely connected with the outside world. In order to pursue individual self-determination and well being, the Chinese people managed to join the mainstream. Just as Premier Wen Jia-bao remarked, “China owes all this progress to the policy of reform and opening up, and, in the final analysis, to the freedom-inspired creativity of the Chinese people.” From the historical perspective, the period from 1978 to 2008 in China is an epoch that can never be repeated.
Over the course of these past thirty years, people have continued to debate whether this era is to be called “socialist” or “capitalist.” They debated this till exhaustion. In the beginning, risk-takers paid a heavy price for this, but it was exactly this kind of debate that impelled China’s rise. The debate is based on believing in actual results. Unlike the reform in Eastern European countries, China chose an extremely unusual path of gradual reform. There have been many difficulties and conflicts, but facts seem to indicate that this was the correct path to the future.
Along the course of this dynamic, extraordinary process, even until today, people have not been able to discern what economists blithely refer to as “objective laws.” In a certain sense, the thirty years of the Chinese
The strongest earthquake in China in more than three decades occurred on May 12, 2008, in Wenchuan, Sichuan. Almost 90,000 died or disappeared and China faced a major challenge in dealing with the calamity. The photograph shows rubble left by the earthquake in Beichuan’s county seat.
Earthquake relief. On May 17, 2008, the Chinese airforce soldiers traveled deep into the mountainous regions to administer emergency relief and to transport the severely wounded from Mianzhu City into Qingping County.
People praying on the first of the national days of mourning after the Wenchuan earthquake, May 19, 2008.
economic miracle have represented victory of the purest experimentalism and a very practical and concrete approach to events. To take leave of extreme poverty and to try to modernize—these have been the over-riding desires of both people and government. As long as people could “feel for the stones with their feet as they crossed the river,” as long as they knew that, whether you were a white or a black cat, what mattered was that when you caught mice you knew you were a good cat, they could face any setbacks. The truth had many different aspects. Development was a tough road, with curves and switchbacks, but it was the right road.
NowChinastandsagain at the crossroads. It is possible that the following questions will only be answered by history: Where is the country going? What setbacks will it encounter? After the Olympics, China will celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and Shanghai will host the World Expo in 2010. At this point, there is no indication that all the fine prospects ahead will not be fulfilled. At the sametime,inflationarypressures are not abating; “Made in China” is being forced to sing a different tune; environmental problems are
Candlelight vigil before the Tangshan Memorial to commemorate and pray for the victims of the Wenchuan disaster. The Great Wenchuan earthquake was the most severe earthquake in China since the Tangshan Earthquake of 1976.
The National Theater, March 2008.
The Bird’s Nest in Beijing, March 2008.
becoming increasingly pronounced, and the directions of political reform and the implementation of a “harmonious society” are very unclear.
For the well-weathered China, all difficulties and com-plexities will be nothing but a transitory test. At this moment, people need to be thinking about the following questions in the midst of this unprecedented