Take a survey of your surroundings, whether at home, office or at play.  It is most likely that within your reach you have an item made in China.  Many US companies have outsourced a majority of their manufacturing jobs to China or India. It is because the cost of labor and supplies is cheaper in this market sometimes one would even say the cost is “dirt cheap.” This has created a boom in factories in China.

Have you ever wondered how stores can have “clearance sales” that have 90% discounted goods?  If you examine the tags the goods are probably made in China’s factory.  This focus of China’s Factory Heart, has provided an economic base that has brought China to the center stage of the global economy in terms of manufacturing.  This however has not come without an environmental degradation of landscape and water supplies, which China is trying to cope with.  Bill McKibben recounts some of his visits to China and poses the question “Is this Chinese Model durable or sustainable for the long haul?”

He introduces the reader to the Chinese city of Yiwu. “If you want to see the spiritual center of the cult of More- its Vatican, its Mecca, its Potala Palace- you should visit the Chinese city of Yiwu..”  It has been branded, the International Trade City (“A Sea of Commodities, A Paradise for Purchaser”).  The sheer size of this trade center and volume of goods – “demonstrate the almost unavoidable truth that anything that can be easily made by human beings can be easily and cheaply made in China.”  To mention a few from toys to tools, crafts, decorations, bags, household goods, cameras, crafts….you name it you can find it in all shapes, sizes, prices and quality.  The following link will provide you with a glimpse of Yiwu:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARjM80dbZgE

McKibben says “This flood of stuff represents the future of poor nations, at least according to prevailing economic wisdom.  Nor is this a hard or cruel wisdom, but a tender one- Wrongheaded, in his view, but tender nonetheless.” The argument advanced in recent years goes like this….  First you industrialize agriculture.  As farmers become more productive, they need fewer farmers.  Those displaced move to the city… “..drawn by higher wages that in turn reflect the higher productivity of work in densely settled urban areas. What follows is a progression of development that moves from subsistence agriculture toward light manufacturing and urbanization and on to high-tech services.”

The New York Times articulated in capsule form as follows, “The better off China is, the better off the rest of the world is- poor countries because they will get a shot at the jobs that leave China; rich countries because many more people all over China will finally be able to afford the expensive goods that are made in America.”  All sorts of good-hearted people have rallied to this banner.  These economists argue that the only way to relieve the planet’s grim poverty is to speed up the cycle of economic expansion. For proof they point to China which in the last decade has seen growth like no nation in history… with annual rate of 10 percent year after year.  Individuals like Cao Zhong-Long who moved to the city to escape the desperate poverty in his home village in Jiangxi province, has now achieved a measure of success now to own his own business and build himself a financial base able to support his family.  Drawn by successes of the likes of Zhong-Long, Chinese in staggering numbers pour out of the countryside and into cities.  It’s the biggest migration in the world’s history: perhaps 30 million people a year join it, although in the city they are treated as hicks and worse.

“BUT can this Chinese model, however admirable, really work for the Chinese, or for anyone else?” McKibben asks. “Let’s concede, for sake of discussion, that the good-hearted economist was right when she said that there’s no reason that the Indians or Chinese couldn’t be as rich as Americans in a few decades, if they follow our economic model” For starters if China alone were to match America in extent of car ownership, there would be 1.1 billion more vehicles on the road. They would also produce more carbon dioxide annually that the whole rest of the world’s transportation systems.

“The planet is already buckling under the weight of one America – we’ve seen the rising temperatures, the erratic extreme weather, and the melting ice caps. Each American uses 6 times as much energy as the average Mexican, 38 times as much as the average Indian, 531 times as much as the man in the Ethiopian street”  That gives you some rough idea of what it would mean if most of the rest of the world even approached the American level of consumption.  We’d need extra planets, several of them. “The fossil-fuel based, auto-centered throwaway economy is not going to work for China… it will not work for India which has a population projected to surpass China’s in 2030.”  The environmental impact on the earth would be unthinkable and tragic. 

McKibben has taken on a tall order of impacting the perception of a nation or generation by presenting an alternative…it is in the book “Deep Economy” read it.

Peter O. Orono

School of Engineering and Technology

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