China’s recent transformation is creating a crisis of sustainability – not just in the environmental and economic sense, but in social and political terms, according to a new book.
A range of tensions that has resulted from China’s rapid economic rise over the past two decades demands urgent attention from China’s leadership, according to Flinders international studies academic Associate Professor Curt Andressen, who has co-edited and contributed to Sustainable Development in China.
The book grew out of a conference between Australian academics and members of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences hosted in Adelaide by Flinders.
“I think this book is timely, because many people in the US and Europe are wondering if China will be a massive growth engine into the future, or whether it will stumble because of its inherent social, economic and environmental problems,” Associate Professor Andressen said.
While the book does discuss issues facing China’s trading partners and the shifting international balance of power that flows from China’s economic ascendancy, most of the chapters address the internal challenges that have resulted.
“There are intrinsic tensions between the nominally socialist system and the booming market-based economy,” Associate Professor Andressen said.
“The distribution of income is very uneven within China, and if you don’t broaden your income distribution, you are going to have social and political problems.”
He said that structural economic change is necessary too, since the economic “miracle” has to date been almost exclusively based on exports
“As the Japanese discovered, you can’t just depend on exports: what would be perfect for China now is to have a domestically driven economy that is at least in balance with exports,” Associate Professor Andressen said.
Achieving this, though, is complex. Associate Professor Andressen said that while wage growth is helping to fuel domestic consumption, it also affects competitiveness – foreign companies are looking to set up elsewhere, and China’s own production is increasingly heading offshore to countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma.
Environmental sustainability also constitutes a pressing, systemic problem, Associate Professor Andressen said.
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He said the dependence of China on coal, its huge industrial sector and increasing per capita consumption are bringing environmental problems to the fore: respiratory and heart disease connected to air pollution are becoming China’s leading cause of death, and 40 per cent of the country’s water has been rendered undrinkable.
At the same time, the government must also confront climate change, Associate Professor Andressen said.
“For China to move ahead such that its economy can continue to flourish, while at the same time the environment can be protected and people can have more equal access to the benefits of the country’s dramatic economic development, a new mode of development is needed. This is the great challenge facing China.”
Sustainable Development in China, edited by Curt Andressen, Ali Rahamathulla Mubarak and Xiayao Wang, is published by Routledge.
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