New China resembles scenes from Fritz Lang’s ‘Metropolis’, the 1927 film inspired by his first view of the Manhattan skyline as he sailed in on his immigrant boat from Germany: if you haven’t seen it, check out the sci-fi images based on this film currently being used as a BBC programme link (also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(1927_film). In China, flyovers, tunnels, multi layered freeways, underground metro links (ok maybe not the biplanes but what about drones?), abound, rising phoenix-like from nowhere and at a speed of development unheard of in the west where our patchwork of private ownership makes projects such as HS2 such a costly and time consuming business. To obtain the required concrete, whole mountains have been halved in size for their limestone. In many areas China resembles nothing more than a vast building site, and as colleague Zhenke speculates, ‘the next generation will be left with nothing to build’.
Tension exists between China’s history and its desire to develop. Nanjing’s brand new city gates, built to replace those destroyed in 1937 at Taiping Men, have been rebuilt at the risk of displeasing UNESCO for this reimagining of the past. We visited the city of Xiaguan in the southwest, and found that since John’s last visit, it has been renamed ‘Dali’ after the easily pronounced nearby small historic settlement. It is expedient, and in China’s case astonishingly easy, to rewrite the past in order to promote a new tourist growth pole. A small village north of Kunming in Yunnan has been renamed Shangri-La for the same purpose. In the cities the historic low rise ‘courtyard’ type communities – the Hu tongs of Beijing, the Nong tangs of Shanghai - have almost entirely disappeared and are being bulldozed to make room for Disneyesque ‘American style’ tourist developments, like Fuji Temple here in Nanjing, in a way that would make English Heritage blench. Nanjing ‘old’ is the new ‘new’ – the 1900 grey brick 2 storey terraces are being rebuilt for tourists around Zhou Enlai’s old courtyard, which strongly contrasts with the conservationist approach of the National Trust’s Birmingham’s back-to-back renovations, which preserve the old materials. Home grown tourist potential is of course massive in a country of nearly 1.4 billion people and the Chinese want new China, not old. The reason for all this helter skelter redevelopment is that the state owns all of the land, generating vast income through Government leases (30-70 years) to the developers.
As in ‘Metropolis’, a vast army of workers, unthinkable in the leisured and high waged west, support China’s wealth, though they live in the tower blocks and not in the subterranean world of the film (the middle classes also live in the city, only the very best paid can afford the rarely found houses in the suburbs). Every bank has uniformed security staff and others to help you queue in the right place, the countless restaurants often have more waiting staff than customers, there’s office cleaners on every floor, street sweepers on every corner and extra leaf operatives in the autumn. In Nanjing Museum today five young girls were there to assist me, the only customer, with the audio link. Shops are well staffed, though customers can be hard to spot: China is a saving not a spending society, even though wages are typically a lot less than half UK levels. Yet people seem happy in their family groups, and anorexia and obesity are not problems here, so far.
Official figures show that unemployment hovers around 4% but in Nanjing at least, I have hardly seen anyone who appears not to be working or studying, or any evidence of mental health problems on the streets, and only one beggar in 2 months. Women retire at 50 and men at 60. However most rural farmers (frequently a woman’s occupation), are over 50, and many grandparents are fully employed bringing up their grandchildren to enable the aspirational family unit to prosper. Outside our flat in the gardens, I have seen those without formal employment sort rubbish, sew, and shine shoes. But this is not oppressive or as common as in poorer countries. The sense of purpose and drive in the well dressed and overwhelmingly young Nanjingers (mini skirts are ‘in’, 'Sound of Silence' a popular tune) is awesome to behold, and for me, is reminiscent of the industrial West Midlands in the 60’s when everyone was employed and happier.
So what of the rich and the super-rich living a life of ease in Lang’s film? Well, personal experience is lacking here, so this from the news last week: Some officials have been known to accept bribes, for example the aptly named Wei Pengyuan (yuan is the currency). Last week, investigators found the equivalent of $32 million in cash in his home (that’s 2 million Chinese bank notes), and during the investigation four out of the sixteen counting machines broke when measuring them. Xi Jinping, China’s president has promised to tackle corruption in China, and has sentenced more than 13,000 officials found guilty of corruption and bribery in the first nine months of 2014 alone. President Xi warned that his campaign against corruption would target both “tigers” and “flies”, indicating that no one, even senior Party members, were exempt from the crackdown.
So, like Metropolis, will China enjoy a happy ending? In Xi Jinping they have a respected leader making the right noises, and if he can follow through, why not?