The economic success of China is the cynosure of much of the world, not least in India which has done well in recent times, yet lagged behind China. There are plenty of academic papers and books which present China?s impressive vital (economic) statistics. The China Price by Alexandra Harney digs deeper below the surface and reveals the human side (and indeed huge human cost) of the Chinese economic miracle.
There is little doubt that industrialisation in any country at any point in history is a difficult process, which extracts a huge price from the working population. One has to only revisit the novels of Charles Dickens to discover the dark underbelly of the original Industrial Revolution in the UK. More recently, the same process repeated itself in the late industrialisers of East Asia in countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand. Mexico is another prominent example. Yet, the miserable working and living conditions faced by Chinese workers, and brought out powerfully in this book, are likely to leave a bigger imprint in the public imagination. For one, the numbers involved in China are that much larger than anywhere else. So, while other countries move up the industrial value chain must faster, with a concomitant increase in the general standard of living, in China the vast amount of surplus labour can sustain cheap labour-intensive manufacturing for a much longer period. Perhaps more importantly, never has one single country produced so many of the world?s consumable goods (particularly America?s, with which China runs a huge trade surplus). The extra attention it receives is thus obvious.
Yet, in China, most workers who live on meagre wages, and in poor conditions, still prefer their new ?industrial? life to a life of rural poverty. And that perhaps makes the whole process more politically sustainable.
The book also has interesting reflections on the role of the government in China. Power, at least in economic policy, is fairly decentralised contrary to perception of a strong Centre. Provinces are regularly engaged in a no holds barred ?race to the bottom? in an attempt to lure investors. Standards, particularly labour and environment, are severely compromised in the process. Even where standards do exist, owners of factories do their best to avoid compliance ? there are stories in the book of how owners only clean up factories prior to an inspection. While multinational corporations claim better standards, the situation on the ground is not very different.
The human element of the book will no doubt appeal to the sensitivity of the reader. Plain economics, however, suggests that things are likely to remain the same for workers in China for the near future. The rest of the world has an insatiable hunger for cheap goods, which the Chinese provide. China has the labour which is willing to work in poor conditions rather than suffer rural poverty. Still, there remain reasons for concern ? recent scares on the safety of goods (toys for example, foods as well) from China should encourage the central government to impose better standards and require the same from provinces as well.
At the same time, there is a strong case for addressing the health and safety concerns of the local population as well ? Hu Jintao?s goal of ?harmonious society? should address this problem along with that of inequality and the other human costs that China?s otherwise remarkable economic story is leaving behind. The Chinese government, as Harney suggests while concluding her impressive book, has shown the ability to get things done. For the sake of Chinese society one hopes that they will get down to bettering standards of work and living.