Thoughts from Shanghai: Something's Gotta Give
SHANGHAI--I attended a talk Saturday by Rob Gifford, a former NPR China correspondent who has written a great book called China Road. Gifford spent six years here, is fluent in Chinese, and has come to the same conclusion I have – that in the long run, something’s gotta give. The country is being pulled in too many different directions at once by some pretty powerful forces (demographics, environmental degradation, industrialization, poverty, extreme wealth, etc), driving tremendously rapid social change.
Some catalyst – a natural disaster, a political movement, a shortage – could set the fire burning. Gifford suggested a safety valve might be the pace of urban development in China, which is giving the rural masses who otherwise might despair a reason to hope for a better life in the city. I hope he’s right.
Images: Social Technologies
John Cashman
in China, Asia
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Reader Comments (2)
There are also demographic problems in China. The lopsided male-female ratio in China caused by sex-selection abortions is 120 men for every 100 women. That is a lot of unattached young men. What does that spell? War.
The idea of war as a solution to the demographic imbalance is kicked around a lot. Given that the excess men will tend to be at the lower end of society, and war would probably not serve the interests of ruling groups, it seems unlikely that the elite would deliberately resort to conflict to take care of the problem. Still, it could be a driver of instability, or at least crime.