China: From economic growth to sustainability
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INSTITUTIONAL REFORM
Quanjude, China' renowned restaurant chain for the time-honored Peking Roast Ducks, sold its 148 millionth duck days ago.
"Can you imagine we used to sell only one piece of duck blood to earn a couple of cents a day?" Jiang Junxian, board of the director for the restaurant marveled as he depicted the bleak days for the century-old chain eatery before 1949, when private businesses struggled to survive amid wars and political chaos.
In 1952, the central government decided to put private businesses under public control and establish a Socialist ownership to pool resources together.
Since early 1980s, the Chinese leadership started to adopt a pragmatic approach to solve political and socio-economic problems.
Policies were made to encourage rises in personal income and consumption, as well as business competition in a bid to stimulate productivity.
A beneficiary of such policies, Quanjude has expanded its chain stores to 62, including five overseas. In 2007, the restaurant chain was listed in the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. One year later, its sales revenue topped 1.1 billion yuan (one dollar equals to about 6.8 yuan).
Also in 2008, China' s GDP rocketed to 3.86 trillion dollars as against 27.6 billion dollars in 1952. Per capita disposable income rose from less than 100 yuan in 1949 to 15,781 yuan in 2008, indicated data from the National Bureau of Statistics.
GREEN CHALLENGES
As China's economy has been built on an extensive growth model, the scarcity of natural resources and environmental degradation are increasingly the constraints for its sustainability.
"We should fundamentally transform the growth pattern," said Wu Jinglian, economist and a staunch supporter for China's economic reform.
As a nation, China boasts an abundance of natural resources. But per capita amount is much less than the world's average, especially for resources of strategic importance such as oil, natural gas and iron ore.
Since China's rapid economic expansion has been propped up by the most fragile ecological conditions, the country is now facing its most severe environmental challenges in history.
Take Shanxi, a coal-rich province in northern China, as an example. A leading coal-producer with one-third of the country's coal reserve, Shanxi had witnessed a double-digit growth for seven straight years before 2007.
However, a high dependence on coal finally brought down Shanxi's GDP by 8.1 percent in the first quarter this year, making the province the only one with negative growth.
Shocked by the punishment from nature, the provincial government decided to close down 2,100 coal pits by the end of 2010, and equip the remaining with clean energy capacities. It also planned to diversify its industry by introducing organic farming.
Shanxi's painful change is an inevitable path for the country to follow.
According to a state guideline released in 2006, China promised to lower emissions by 10 percent and reduce its energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20 percent between 2005 and 2010.
That equals to a reduction of 1.5-billion-tonne greenhouse emission, or 300 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.
On Sept. 22, China renewed its green promise to the world as President Hu Jintao pledged to cut carbon emissions by a "notable margin" by 2020 from the 2005 level at the United Nations General Assembly.
Enterprises are urged to undergo environmental evaluation for their bank credit whereas highly-polluted and energy-consuming construction projects will be curbed.
Green technology and renewable energy has been mapped out as the next growth engine.
China aims to increase consumption of renewable energy to ten percent by 2010 and 15 percent by 2020, with an emphasis on providing advanced energy technologies to rural China to accommodate 750 million villagers.
By 2008, according to the Global Wind Energy Council, China had the largest fleet of wind turbines in Asia, with a power-generating capacity of 12.21 million kilowatts, ranking 4th in the world.
Government incentives have brought on board some 600 solar cell companies, mostly privately-owned, which produce 44 percent of the world's cells for solar power devices.
New energy automobiles are also on the card as the government offers to subsidize owners. In addition, China plans to install 150 million energy saving light bulbs in millions of households.
As the Economist magazine put it, despite China's huge economic success in the past decade, it still needs the same miracle in environmental protection to make a real China miracle.
The Chinese leadership is fully aware of the daunting tasks facing the country.
"One point three billion is a very big number," said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. "If we use multiplication, any small problem multiplied by 1.3 billion will end up being very big. Likewise, a big aggregate divided by 1.3 billion would come to a very tiny figure," he added.
As China celebrated the 60th anniversary of New China on October 1, the country has already set its eyes onto the challenging future.
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