Brittle China

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 15:34:26 +0100

O'Reilly Radar has a summary of talk given by, long term China watcher, Orville Schell to the Long Now Foundation. He was talking about the dichotomy that is modern China.

On the one hand there is the robust, growing China, and on the other hand:

BRITTLE CHINA

Not much arable land, so a growing dependence on imported food

Two-thirds of energy production is from dirty coal, by dirty methods, growing at the rate of 1-2 new coal-fired plants per week

30 percent of China has acid rain; 75 percent of lakes are polluted and rivers are polluted or pumped dry

Of the 20 most polluted cities in the world, 16 are in China; you don't see the sun any more

Some industrial parts of China are barren, hellish wastes

Driven by environmental horrors and by widespread corruption, there were 87,000 instances of social unrest last year, going up every year

The population is aging rapidly, with no pension or welfare, and a broken healthcare system

The stock markets are grossly manipulated

Public and official amnesia about historical legacies such as Tiananmen Square in 1989

What struck me was not only the scale of it - Victorian England on a megadose of steroids - but how it screams out for imagery.

Where is the Flickr photostream of brittle China?

Curiouser and Curiouser! on china

Brittle China