From Sandton to Shanghai

(A Reunification gift from the Mainland to Taiwan. When put together, the Panda names mean ‘reunited.’ Taiwan is a key part in China’s Superpower puzzle. Photo Source: Shanghai Daily)

China’s current rise is often viewed through a lens of economic indicators. It is after all China’s sustained economic growth rates over a period of 30 years that pushed the country back into the global spotlight.

However, while Goldman Sachs famously predicted that China’s economy will overtake that of the USA by the year 2025, the more important question to be answered is:

‘When will it be poignant to say that China has arrived as the world’s next superpower?’

At the end of the day, while a superpower is more than just a big economy, it is through having a big economy that China will start influencing global agendas and exerting significant international influence.

In China reaching superpower status, there are two definitive indicators to look out for. They represent significant global milestones that will be the catalyst for pushing China beyond the realms of a sizable global economic entity.

• Reunification with Taiwan
• Man on the Moon

1. Reunification with Taiwan

The latest gift from Mainland China to Taipei was of a pair of giant pandas. Their names - Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan - are deeply symbolic. Added together, ‘tuanyuan’ means ‘reunification’ in Mandarin and there will be much pressure on the panda couple to add to this symbolism by producing a new generation of reunited offspring in Taiwan.

The China -Taiwan togetherness issue, notwithstanding bumps along the way, is a matter of when not if. Even Japan has expressed recent concern at just how much momentum has been made on the cross straits relationships front - to the detriment of its own interactions with Taiwan.

Taiwan’s reunification with China is profound on many levels. Economically, there are great benefits on either side. Politically, it will represent a united force in the region on an issue that has often been a powerful, divisive wedge in recent history.

It will also be a huge gain of face for the Chinese people and government after being spurned by the Nationalists 60 years ago. Reunification will finally show that after many wrong leadership and economic turns, the Chinese nation has thrown off its internal chaos and emerged as a swan on the other side.

Probably little explored is the cultural importance of a China - Taiwan merger. The Cultural Revolution had devastating effects on Chinese society including destroying centuries of traditions and cultural heritage.

This is by no means a unique experience in Chinese history - it has often gone through severe book-burning periods between chaotic dynasty transitions. However, it was the reconnection with this lost heritage through cultural emissaries that have then speeded up China’s subsequent development phase.

Taiwan is this emissary - representing a physical and cultural treasure trove for their Mainland counterparts that have largely been protected from China’s tumultuous purges under the Great Helmsman Mao. The reintegration of this knowledge in all its many forms across various levels of society will give great depth to refocusing attention on China’s long held mantle as the Middle Kingdom.

2. Man on the Moon

As respected academics pointed after the historic 2008 Beijing Olympics, it is fine for China win the Olympic Gold Medal tally, but what really counts is China winning gold on the science and technology front - an area that it is severely lacking in on at the moment.

As mentioned in a previous posting, I predict that the next man on the moon will be Chinese. There are many assumptions that make sense for China to have a big, over-arching national goal - both to see the country through the difficult transition from a socialist to a market economy and also to focus the nation and its economic engine on the next big prize.

In essence, now that the battle for the ‘manufacturing’ mountains has been won, the battle for the ‘science and technology’ plains has begun.

Putting a man on the moon by the year 2020 will show serious intention to spend on military hardware that puts China at the forefront of global martial influence. Such a focus would also serve to wean China away from imported technology. Having a concentration on home-growing innovation has strong downstream benefits too - both for broader society and as a means to build China’s next generation of global super companies.

In the Greater Scheme of Things

Reunification with Taiwan would reflect that China’s economic environment is strong enough to be at the negotiating table in the first place. From cross strait bridges would arise strong political and cultural progress beyond regional borders.

Putting a Man on the Moon will also point to a substantial economy that can effectively engage in long-term planning and invest significant resources in science and technology development. Its outcome of home grown technology will support global business ambitions and significantly increase international military prowess.

Having obtained these 2 key pieces of the puzzle - reuniting with Taiwan and putting a Man on the Moon, China will be in its strongest position in over 500 years, while also clearly having arrived alongside the USA as the world’s next superpower.

(Not a NASA lift-off, but China’s Shenhua rocket that propelled the country’s first manned space mission in 2005. Photo: Xinhua. )

As the new millennium winds on, many people will look for concrete evidence that China has indeed arrived on the world superpower stage. If you are looking for a definitive date, then diarise the year 2020 when China plans to send its first man to the moon.

Thus far, there have only ever been 3 countries in the world to send humans to space. In 2005, China became the newest member of the 62.1 mile high club. It joined US astronauts and Russian cosmonauts when its taikonauts (from 太空 - ‘taikong’ or ‘outer space’) blasted into the heavens on a Shenzhou spaceship in 2005

USA and Russia both staked their claim to superpower status during the height of the cold war. Their competing space programmes signified the apex of global military and technological advancement. But it was only the USA that was able to sustain this advantage and put a man on the moon in 1969. In 1972, Eugene Cernan was the last man on the moon and both China and the USA are speculating that the year 2020 will see a lunar return after half a century’s absence. My money will be on China.

While China’s space ambitions are not a state-held secret, what is unique will be its method of delivery. Very simply, China is in dire need of a overarching goal to drive its national agenda once the Beijing Olympics and Shanghai Expo are resigned to the history books. It is my belief that China’s next big national goal will be its space programme. More specifically, this generation of Chinese citizens will be compelled into the 21st century by seeing a Chinese person on the moon in 13 years time.

The Chinese having a saying: “旧不去，新不来” which basically means if the old does not go out then the new can not come in. At the moment, Shanghai and Beijing are the hotbed of China‘s national development goals. These are driving China‘s modernizations and its rise to global prominence. Just about nothing happens in Beijing that is not linked to some pre-Olympics goal and ditto goes for Shanghai’s hosting of the World Expo in 2010.

In Beijing this means teaching taxi drivers to speak English, cutting down on the fake DVD sellers on the roadside, banning spitting in public, encouraging metro manners and getting people to walk on the right side of passage. It has also meant massive infrastructural investments in new subway lines, high-speed trains, airport modernizations and of course hugely impressive sports stadiums and related infrastructure.

In Shanghai, the dawning of the World Expo in 2010 has meant (amongst other things) the construction of an 18km bridge to Chongming Island, adding a few dozen more metro stations to the grid, increasing the font size of local street signs, testing the world’s first 4G cell phone network and demolishing 3km of prime land on the banks of the Huangpu River.

In this light, the Chinese government has shown strategic smartness to the highest degree. There is nothing to smooth-over the difficult transition of moving a fifth of the world’s population from a communist to market society quite like having big aspirational goals on the horizon. This type of socio-economic evolution is painful at best and creating a sense of ‘future hope and present progress for the greater good’ is an imperative chasm-crossing feat.

Ever since I arrived in China, I have had much respect for how well the Chinese are capitalizing on the opportunity of hosting 2 of the 3 biggest events in the world. In some ways, I am also seeing the many lost opportunities that South Africa seem to be passing in the night as our Soccer World Cup stage draws closer.

Sure, we will hold a successful World Cup beyond all the eternal pessimists of the world that sell newspapers or who we have thankfully forever banished to Australian and New Zealand shores. However, where are the big housing, education and crime goals that should surely be proactively addressed through such a unique cause to unify the nation around?

However, realizing the just how important the Olympics and World Expo are to China’s bigger national cause and global interests, I have always been fascinating to ask “What Next?” There is little else on the global calendar to compare. What China needs is a massive externally focused goal. These are its characteristics:

• Bigger than just a city centric goal like Shanghai or Beijing
• From 2010 to 2020. Beyond this is too intangible a time span
• Aspirational goal of the highest possible military and technological achievement

This goal needs to combine China’s unique assets: its immense financial capacity, the long-term planning capabilities of an autocratic government, large doses of national pride and vast pool of intellectual resources to draw on. There is nothing else as tangible or logical to accommodate all these facets as putting a man on the moon. Not only is this something to unite the country around, but it is something that says to the rest of the world that China has finally arrived.

There are some shortcomings to contend with. China is often judged for where it is going rather than where it is. The reality is that it is many (many, many) years behind the USA’s current space prowess. It is catching up really fast and it has the extra capacity to catch up even faster. Money, smart vision and a big national goal can get a man on the moon and this is what inspired the US in the 1960s.

The second issue is one of pride. Simply putting a man on the moon is doing what the USA did 50 years ago. The Chinese definitely don’t want to emphasize that for all their advancement, they are still miles behind the USA. So expect the rhetoric and tweaks to come in so as to differentiate the two space programmes. While China is not the threat that Russia was, it is still a proud nation to contend with.

As I write this, China’s first lunar probe, Chang’e, is circling the moon and I am sure that China’s top brass are already contemplating the next big thing. With this in mind, I am happy to stick my neck out to predict that:

• The space programme will be China’s next big national goal after 2010
• The next person on the moon will be Chinese

(Source: Xinhua. Hot off the press. One of China’s first ever lunar photos taken by Chang’e I and published on 26 Nov 07)