Made In China

Category: Politics/Societal Issues
Source: Can Brand China Survive

It’s funny how civilisations rise and fall. In the 14^th century, China seemed well on its way to becoming a global power, while Europe was still in the throes of the Dark Ages. After an immense lapse of half a millennium in which Europe gained ascendancy, China is back on her feet and within a couple of decades running at a breakneck pace. In a few years China will overtake Germany as the world’s third largest economy, and soon after it will overtake Japan and be hot on the heels of the United States. The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games will be a monumental showcase of China’s meteoric rise to become a new global superpower.

Recently however, the image of the Middle Kingdom has been smeared by a series of scandals regarding various Chinese products. With the Olympics just round the corner, it is a problem that the Chinese are anxious to clean up. To me however, these industrial embarrassments are but teething pains that all countries, even in the West, face during development. The industrial boom naturally leads to a shortfall in quality control since the private sector moves much faster than government regulation. What should be of main concern now is whether growth at such an uncontrollable pace is beneficial to China and the world at large.

China’s rate of industrialization is unparalleled, with towns turning into industrial parks in merely a year’s time. However, this rapid development in the context of Chinese industries’ poor energy efficiency has created an extremely polluted environment. Water and air pollution has caused 750,000 premature deaths annually, and air pollution indices across two-thirds of the country register high or extreme levels of pollution. Its carbon emissions are well under way to surpass that of the U.S, and with the ongoing environmental crisis, China is playing a negative part in efforts to ease the Earth’s burden.

China’s insatiable appetite for oil to sustain its development has also led her into Faustian pacts with a number of unsavory regimes. Her dealings with human rights abusers in oil-rich Sudan and Iran have come under heavy fire from around the globe. Even Steven Spielberg, the artistic director for Beijing 2008 has threatened to resign over the involvement of China in Sudan. With the highest death penalty rate in the world, China already has an abysmal record for human rights. Her dealings with such outcast regimes take an even greater toll on her image.

The rising status of China is a good thing in itself, especially for her one billion citizens. Yet as a rising superpower, China must temper her ambitions with a consideration for the inevitable impact her growth has on the rest of the world. Having stepped into the limelight on the global stage, China must also present herself as a responsible, civilised power with a greater concern for the welfare of human beings around the world.

(481 words)

The Global Retreat

Category: Environmental issues
Source: The Big Thaw

Ice on the run, seas on the rise. Global warming no longer exists just in theory, but it is happening right now. Floods, forest fires, rising temperatures get their air time on the news daily. We all know well what is causing it, and it is time we came face to face with it. Here, I shall not be harping on the causal factors, but about the human element in this global crisis.

The earth’s surface has undergone a major face-lift since man walked the earth. Billions of years of evolution have placed us at the top of the food chain. However, is the intelligence bestowed upon us too much for our own good? Animals roamed the earth for billions of years, yet what they seek day to day is simple survival. Man’s astonishing ability of survival has given him energy for another objective – the quest for knowledge and growth. For this quest, we have taken again and again from the Earth. We ripped out the rocky veins of the earth and transformed them into cold grey monstrosities of concrete and steel, replaced trees with towering skyscrapers and factories. However, these creations begotten from the earth now come with a price, moving us an inch closer to our own destruction.

The threat of global warming is unequivocal. The seas crawl closer with the passing of each day. Tuvalu, a group of beautiful South Pacific islands with a population of 12,000, is disappearing slowly under the waves. It is a chilling predicament we’re trapped in (despite the heat). The effects of global warming are becoming irreversible. We cannot simply recreate the glaciers or polar caps after they melt. Sometimes these thoughts leave me hopeless and clueless about what ought to be done. “It’s like watching the statue of liberty melt”. There is an ominous sense of inevitability about the problem.

Over the recent years, there has been much effort to raise the awareness of the situation, and people all over the world have answered the call. Awareness has definitely been raised, yet everyday we wake, we carry on with more or less the same kind of life. How many people actually take action? Live Earth was a classic example of our collective hypocrisy. It was a concert for the environment, yet after the concert, the amount of litter found speaks volumes about the true attitude of people, people who pay lip service to the green movement for that little feel-good factor. It is heartening to see Singapore’s efforts to aid the environmental crisis, but the kind of lifestyle we have been so used to is not something you would expect people to change overnight.

MM Lee once said that the greatest challenge for the new generation would be the challenge of the environment. Looking out to the sea, the idea of the world being drowned is hard to imagine, and it is not something I would ever like to see either.

(490 words)