China Number One?
Anyone who has visited China recently is unlikely not to be impressed with the the country’s almost futuristic display of technology. From robot cooks, smart cars, smart apartments, smart toilets to drone delivery, you need to be a technophobe not to be impressed.
If you look around on YouTube, you’ll also find videos of Westerners praising China’s advancement, saying that the West is left behind.
China now has more patents than any other country in the world. But how many of them led to genuine innovations? Someone asked on Zhihu, why is it that while China looks even more futuristic than Japan, Japanese scientists have won more Nobel Prizes?
If your coronary arteries are clogged and you need a stent, would you pick one made in China or one made in Japan? Even the most boastful, chest thumping Chinese patriots know which one their leaders would pick.
Actually, this phenomenon is not new. Way back in the 1950s (1952-1962), China impressed the world with their Great Leap Forward 大跃进。Mao Zedong declared that China would overtake the UK and catch up with the US in 5 years. It was an aggressive industrial revolution with terms like 亩产万斤. Below: China Daily headlines 13 August 1958. Fujian Province reports 1 mu of land produced 10500 jin of rice. 1 mu is about 666 square metres and 1 jin is approximately 500g.
Many foreigners were thrilled and one of them was President Sukarno of Indonesia. When I was a kid, my elders were always talking about the purging of Chinese people from Indonesia. That was after the revolution which overthrew Sukarno. Indonesia’s first president was very much a pro-China, pro-Communist leader who believed that China’s Great Leap Forward was the way to go. There was even a communist party (the PKI headed by Adi) in the Indonesian Parliament. In Sukarno’s own words, it was a “guided democracy” and the three key concepts were summed up by the acronym NASKOM – Nation, Agama (religion), Komunisme (communism). In his mind China was Number One. He even ordered an atomic bomb from China when the country successfully tested one in 1964. Nevertheless, most of us only remember that Suharto would topple Sukarno in 1965 and wage a bloody war against communism. That put an end to Konfrontasi and Indonesia’s dreams of becoming a nuclear power.
Back to China. While the industrial machinery during the Great Leap went full steam ahead, the propaganda machine was not idling. The people knew nothing about the secret of close-cropping in 亩产万斤. The steel production figures were pushed up by people melting down their woks and pots. The numbers and the displays were impressive but any fool would know that couldn’t be sustainable.
The house of cards came tumbling down with the Great Famine in 1959-1961. Lesson learned? Deng Xiaoping:
“If China were ever to seek hegemony, the people of the world should unite to expose and overthrow it.”
Alas, lessons are soon forgotten. We’re seeing what seems like a repeat of the Great Leap Forward. The results may not be so disastrous as that in the 1950s but the number of people affected will be far greater and spread throughout the world.
