From Sandton to Shanghai

(Shanghai Winter wonderland - View from our apartment. Photo: Julian Hewitt 29 Jan 08)

I have officially decided not to wish a Shanghai winter on my worst enemy. For a city that sits on the tropical cyclone path in summer, the past 4 days of continuous snow have been rather bizarre - blanketing the city in a layer of snow not seen in decades. The result has been a rather bone chilling experience.

Shanghai’s unique aquatic positioning with the Huangpu River cutting a swathe through the middle, the Yangze bordering on the north and the East China sea to the east mean that the air is heavily moisture laden. Throw in bouts of freezing weather, poorly insulated apartments with single glazed windows and I am waking up to temperatures of 7 degrees Celsius in my room.

My winter woes however, are the least of China’s. The country has been hit my some of the worst weather in half a century. The eastern and southern part of the country, often far removed from winter’s icy hand, has taken particular strain with major train lines, freeways and airports having to shut down due to the severe snow storms.

The situation is definitely reaching breaking point with the world’s largest annual human migration on the doorstep. Over the next couple of days, over 50 million plus people are preparing to return home for the upcoming week-long national holiday to celebrate Chinese New Year with their families.

Transport disruptions will hit China’s migrant labour force particularly hard. Chinese New Year is often their only opportunity every year to return to distant families in the far flung corners of the country. In the case of Shanghai, the city’s 6-7 million migrant community make up a third of the city’s total residents.

In addition, the inclement weather is placing severe strain on China’s electricity supply. Luckily this is not affecting the measly heaters in my flat, but the cold weather has spiked electricity usage and the snowed up transport systems are battling to supply China’s coal fired stations fast enough.

On the 7^th February, China will welcome in the Year of the Rat. People born in the Year of the Rat are supposedly good at adapting rapidly to any unforeseen changes. Let us hope China’s snow tribulations are not an inauspicious end to the Year of the Pig - noted for being one of the laziest of the 12 Chinese Zodiac animals.

There might be some pretty big problems to sort out in the next few days.

(Charting a new course to the mainland? Photo: Julian Hewitt)

In a busy week for China - Taiwan relations, Malawi switched its diplomatic allegiance to China after officially recognizing Taiwan for the past 4 decades. The rumoured USD6 billion dollar cash incentive will easily smooth over any transition challenges.

Taiwan have also just concluded their parliamentary elections, with the Nationalist Party (KMT) winning an overwhelming majority from the ‘splitist’ rhetoric of Chen Shui-bian and his Democratic Progressive Party that has been a thorn in China’s side for the last few years.

With Malawi in the China fold, it is now a case of ‘1 more country down, 23 to go’ in China’s 59-year long sovereignty tussle with Taiwan. On the other side of the fence, Taiwan is quite literally playing its end game with some of the most random countries in the world.

It was in 1949 when China’s Nationalist Party (KMT) took refuge on the island of Taiwan after fleeing from Mao’s Communist Party. It was from their island base that they continued to claim ‘rightful rulership’ over China. For a while thereafter, the threat of global communism went a long way for most Western countries to support their claim.

However time and economics are the great levelers. Today, Taiwan is home to 23 million people while China boasts over 1.3 billion inhabitants.

China’s coup de grace came way back in 1971 when it not only replaced Taiwan as a UN member country but also ascended to the lofty heights of the 5-member UN Security Council. Not only did most of the big economies shift diplomatic ties around this period, but China’s power of veto has precluded any Taiwan membership applications ever since.

The interesting thing is that Taiwan has never officially claimed independence from China. It still clings doggedly to the notion that it holds the mandate of heaven for Chinese people. As this becomes a more and more remote possibility, Taiwan’s threats of independence have become more amplified as a last desperate straw. It is this independence proposition that gets the China - Taiwan relationship on edge more than anything else.

While South Africa enjoys 10 years of diplomatic relations with China this year, Taiwan is still recognized by 4 African countries: Swaziland, Sao Tome and Principe, Burkina Faso, and Gambia. It is only in Central America that Taiwan still holds some semblance of sway with diplomatic relations to countries like Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama and Nicaragua.

However, there is one country that still retains Taiwan links that carries the weighting of at least the other 22 countries combined. This country is a key cornerstone in China’s foreign policy and actually has some serious bargaining power with no hindrance of political time pressure.

With 1.1 billion members around the world, the Holy See of Vatican City still recognizes Taiwan above China. However, relationships are already thawing with China and when the Vatican City inevitably switches flags (I give it 5 - 10 years), this will truly be the last diplomatic nail in the Taiwan’s coffin and a big boost for Christianity in China’s largely spiritual vacuum.

(In this article, China refers to ‘The People’s Republic of China’. Taiwan is officially known as ‘The Republic of China’ or ROC. Taiwan is actually the name of the largest island under ROC leadership)

I recently had a ‘Rip van Winkel’ moment arriving back in Shanghai after being away for the Christmas week. I returned to find that the city’s transport infrastructure had morphed overnight.

In a single day, a mind-boggling 58 new metro stations were added to the city’s transport network. Shanghai now had 3 new metro lines while another 2 lines had been extended. It felt like I had been snoozing for a few years!

To put it into context, the 80km Gautrain was started in 2006 and only one section of the journey will be finished (hopefully!) by the 2010 World Cup. By contrast, with the bare minimum of fanfare, Shanghai has quietly added 96km of metro lines within a single year. And this was not even newsworthy enough to make a single non-Chinese newspaper.

Shanghai is currently the 7^th longest metro in the world and boasts a 234km long network. Both Shanghai and Beijing have plans to extend their metro lines beyond the 400km mark within the next few years. This will put them in reach of the longest lines in the world.

Coming back from recent trips to the USA, the iconic New York subway looked rather hagged in comparison. Maybe Paris Hilton is right. On her first visit to Shanghai she made arguably one of her smartest comments.

“Shanghai looks like the future!” she poured fourth.

(A New York Subway Platform in its ‘not so finest hour’. Photo - Julian Hewitt, Oct 07)

(Shanghai’s New Line 6 Platform. Photo Wangjianshuo)

“In tonight’s programme we will reveal how the majority of American apple juice actually comes from Communist China.”

Sounds like this excerpt is straight out of the fear mongering of the Cold War era, but actually it is one of the last TV sound bites I took back with me after a recent trip to the USA. While you might argue this is my just punishment for watching something like Fox TV, it does highlight how China is still so rigidly defined by stereotypes.

China is an incredibly complex country to sum up. The huge scale of the nation and its recent lightning fast socio - economic changes make it a country that comfortably holds many paradoxes in a way that few other countries can lay claim too. China is both rich and poor, communist and capitalist, old and new.

Most western minds crave an easy answer to understanding China in a sound bite. Even with fluent Mandarin linguistic ability and comprehensive cultural insight, China does not throw up any easy answers.

Before coming to China, I was interested in exploring the various lenses that popular media view China through. It occurred to me that the country is the modern day equivalent of the ‘Blind men and the Elephant’ Sufi tale.

The parable goes that there are some blind men gathered around a strange beast. One man grabs the elephant’s tusk and proclaims it to be a hard and spear-like animal. Another man latches on to the trunk and boldly claims that they are actually holding a powerful snake and so on. Each man is convinced that they have the answer and that the others are all wrong.

In many ways, China is very much like this elephant. It is hard and soft, sharp edged and rounded - depending on how you look at it and where you look at it from. If you look at it from political, economic, human rights, ecological, cultural or historical lenses; China will jump out at you like a different creature.

No lenses are necessarily wrong, but neither are they right. Some people have the benefit of seeing China through numerous lenses, but even if all the views are thrown in together, the sum of the parts will never equal the whole. But many people like try to convince you that they have the answer.

Books are one of the many places were this one sided view of the Chinese elephant is probably apparent. And there really are some shockers out there with titles like my all time bugbear “The Coming Collapse of China” or “The China Threat: How the People’s Republic Targets America.”

The reality is that you can’t claim to understand China through the lens of Tiananmen Square or the Shanghai Stock Market. Nor will you get any closer by visiting Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Reading the latest “Art of War for Marketing Managers in China” or “China’s Secret Plans for Global Hegemony” will probably take you far from the point.

Unless you are comfortable with holding two opposing paradoxes in either hand, like the idea of uncertainty and don’t shy away from complexity; then the Chinese elephant will be a mysterious animal worthy of being afraid of.

What China will always remain is a collection of many lenses rather than a single reference point.