"I'm forever blowing bubbles, pretty bubbles in the air.
They fly so high, they reach the sky,
And like my dreams, they fade and die."
When West Ham United fans sing these lines, they probably rue all the missed opportunities that have been responsible for their mediocrity in the Premier League today. But fear not, my readers, this is not a historical account of West Ham United. Nor is it a ramble about the football culture of England. This, my friends, is a treatise on the People's Republic of China.
Because to me, nothing is as inevitable as the bursting of the China bubble. Think about it. For 3000 years, every time somebody told people what to do, that somebody eventually became a badly mutilated corpse. Unless, of course, the people had worse things to worry about, like the Black Death, or a World War, a famine or the United States of America. As soon as these temporary inconveniences passed by, the country's leader passed away, usually after a goodish deal of torture and/or humiliation.
Today, very few countries have such leaders, and China is clearly the most developed among them. North Koreans, for instance, have the US Army as well as large scale poverty and underdevelopment to worry about. So Kim Jong-Il has become 'The Dear Leader' of the DPRK, and he's not losing any sleep at night.
China, on the other hand, is a completely different story. Most Chinese people have food to eat, clothes to wear and houses to live in. And with the world's largest Army, security is now a non-issue. But of course, being human, they now want more. And more. Smartphones? Check. Mercs? Check. Swiss watches, French wines, Italian suits? Check-eroo. Freedom? The question hangs.
It's not that nobody's asked that question in the last 60 years - of course they have. The problem was that they were too few in number. The well-educated elite were vastly outnumbered by the starving, homeless and illiterate populace. Their cries for freedom simply didn't matter because the average Chinese guy in the '70s hardly had enough time to worry about his next meal, let alone the way his government ruled him. Today, however, the Chinese public education system has brought about a sea change in the mentality of each and every single citizen. Illiteracy has fallen from over 80 percent down to five percent. Today, 250 million Chinese get three levels of school education(elementary, junior and senior high school). Net elementary school enrolment has reached 98.9 percent, and the gross enrolment rate in junior high schools 94.1 percent. With education, every single man can form an opinion on the world around him, and he can now safely worry about his government, knowing that a day off from work doesn't mean going to bed hungry.
And that's when things start to turn sour. Uncomfortable questions will be asked by increasingly large numbers of people. The Government will neither be able to silence the askers nor will it be able to provide satisfactory answers to their questions. If a hundred thousand students in 1989 could keep Tiananmen Square forever engraved in the world's memories, imagine what 250 million of them could do now. It's only a matter of time.
The most maddening aspect of it all is that the Chinese government will have brought it all upon itself. If Chinese leaders had kept the entire country poor, starving and homeless, this won't happen in a million years. But no, they wanted to go full speed ahead with development. If that was the case, then a shift from authoritarianism should have been made long, long ago.
Unfortunately, if the Universe has one flat rule, it's that you can't have the best of everything.
If you give a football to Lionel Messi, he'll keep it right between his legs and blitz through the opposition before finding the back of the net. If you were to give it to Frank Lampard, he'd put his boot through it and drill a hole in the net before you know it. But if you gave it to, say, Salomon Kalou, he'd probably try running with it, but sooner or later, he'd push the ball too far and the inevitable slide in from the defender would take the ball away from him. If you show the defender too much of the ball, he'll pounce immediately. And if you show your people too much of freedom, they'll pounce on it too. Sooner or later.
So now the Chinese government can't do a thing. Quelling the revolutionary instincts of the people will be as impossible as taking back the education they've given their people. They're sitting on a rainbow, but what they don't know is that there's a big, ugly mess at the end of it. Not only will they be faced with a political overhaul, they'll also have to deal with a complete economic breakdown.
And so I guess it's safe to say that every single road leads to doom for the Chinese.
In a typically train of thought, I am now certain that no matter how fast China develops, they will but hasten their own death, at least in this incarnation. And I'm feeling this deep-seated satisfaction in knowing that.
I haven't had a Chinese reader yet, but if you're Chinese and reading this, there's nothing more I can say than "I'm sorry dude, all the best."
And if you're Indian, "Aane de, bhai! Aane de!".
- bala
They fly so high, they reach the sky,
And like my dreams, they fade and die."
When West Ham United fans sing these lines, they probably rue all the missed opportunities that have been responsible for their mediocrity in the Premier League today. But fear not, my readers, this is not a historical account of West Ham United. Nor is it a ramble about the football culture of England. This, my friends, is a treatise on the People's Republic of China.
Because to me, nothing is as inevitable as the bursting of the China bubble. Think about it. For 3000 years, every time somebody told people what to do, that somebody eventually became a badly mutilated corpse. Unless, of course, the people had worse things to worry about, like the Black Death, or a World War, a famine or the United States of America. As soon as these temporary inconveniences passed by, the country's leader passed away, usually after a goodish deal of torture and/or humiliation.
Today, very few countries have such leaders, and China is clearly the most developed among them. North Koreans, for instance, have the US Army as well as large scale poverty and underdevelopment to worry about. So Kim Jong-Il has become 'The Dear Leader' of the DPRK, and he's not losing any sleep at night.
China, on the other hand, is a completely different story. Most Chinese people have food to eat, clothes to wear and houses to live in. And with the world's largest Army, security is now a non-issue. But of course, being human, they now want more. And more. Smartphones? Check. Mercs? Check. Swiss watches, French wines, Italian suits? Check-eroo. Freedom? The question hangs.
It's not that nobody's asked that question in the last 60 years - of course they have. The problem was that they were too few in number. The well-educated elite were vastly outnumbered by the starving, homeless and illiterate populace. Their cries for freedom simply didn't matter because the average Chinese guy in the '70s hardly had enough time to worry about his next meal, let alone the way his government ruled him. Today, however, the Chinese public education system has brought about a sea change in the mentality of each and every single citizen. Illiteracy has fallen from over 80 percent down to five percent. Today, 250 million Chinese get three levels of school education(elementary, junior and senior high school). Net elementary school enrolment has reached 98.9 percent, and the gross enrolment rate in junior high schools 94.1 percent. With education, every single man can form an opinion on the world around him, and he can now safely worry about his government, knowing that a day off from work doesn't mean going to bed hungry.
And that's when things start to turn sour. Uncomfortable questions will be asked by increasingly large numbers of people. The Government will neither be able to silence the askers nor will it be able to provide satisfactory answers to their questions. If a hundred thousand students in 1989 could keep Tiananmen Square forever engraved in the world's memories, imagine what 250 million of them could do now. It's only a matter of time.
The most maddening aspect of it all is that the Chinese government will have brought it all upon itself. If Chinese leaders had kept the entire country poor, starving and homeless, this won't happen in a million years. But no, they wanted to go full speed ahead with development. If that was the case, then a shift from authoritarianism should have been made long, long ago.
Unfortunately, if the Universe has one flat rule, it's that you can't have the best of everything.
If you give a football to Lionel Messi, he'll keep it right between his legs and blitz through the opposition before finding the back of the net. If you were to give it to Frank Lampard, he'd put his boot through it and drill a hole in the net before you know it. But if you gave it to, say, Salomon Kalou, he'd probably try running with it, but sooner or later, he'd push the ball too far and the inevitable slide in from the defender would take the ball away from him. If you show the defender too much of the ball, he'll pounce immediately. And if you show your people too much of freedom, they'll pounce on it too. Sooner or later.
So now the Chinese government can't do a thing. Quelling the revolutionary instincts of the people will be as impossible as taking back the education they've given their people. They're sitting on a rainbow, but what they don't know is that there's a big, ugly mess at the end of it. Not only will they be faced with a political overhaul, they'll also have to deal with a complete economic breakdown.
And so I guess it's safe to say that every single road leads to doom for the Chinese.
In a typically train of thought, I am now certain that no matter how fast China develops, they will but hasten their own death, at least in this incarnation. And I'm feeling this deep-seated satisfaction in knowing that.
I haven't had a Chinese reader yet, but if you're Chinese and reading this, there's nothing more I can say than "I'm sorry dude, all the best."
And if you're Indian, "Aane de, bhai! Aane de!".
- bala
