For a fare twenty time more expensive than the ordinary fee, a five-star hotel on wheels will from September this year offer the most luxurious train in the world for the journey between Beijing and Lhasa, complete with a sightseeing car to take in the view on the 'roof of the world.' A few more affluent visitors might well be useful, because according to an evaluation of comprehensive economic competitiveness among China's 31 provincial-level administrative regions in 2006 (released this week by China's Overall Economic Competitiveness Research Center), Tibet finds itself at the bottom of the list, along with other western provinces like Xinjiang, Yunnan and Gansu. Topping the list is highflier Shanghai (with the bad luck that it might find itself inundated by ocean water by 2050 when global temperatures are expected to rise by 2 degrees), where residents have recently been competing very effectively to induce the local government to delay construction of an electromagnetic train line until next year. FT.com reports on mass protests by residents whose flats are situated near the planned track as becoming an important test of the potential for political activism among the new middle class, especially residents of the wealthier cities who have acquired their own property. For all their efforts, the people of Shanghai may soon be able to indulge in Asia's third Disneyland as the city's mayor this week announced plans to build the theme park right in Pudong - the cradle of China's reform-era industrial leap.

The arrival of the full Disney cast in Pudong forms a poignant juxtaposition with Nanjie village in Henan, China's so-called utopian communist village (where workers supposedly go to the factories as equals every morning to the tune of "The East is Red"), and Dazhai village in Shanxi, home of the famous 'Dazhai spirit' of self-reliance and selfless devotion, later renounced during the Cultural Revolution and now a renowned patriotic tourist destination with its own brand name and newly-built Buddhist Temple. No such luch for Nanjie, though. Global Voices Online translates a review by Chinese blogger Xiong Peiyun, declaring the 'Nanjie myth' to the 'broken' and the model village utterly bankrupt. When village director Wang Jinzhing died in 2003, according to Xiong, a full 20 million Yuan was found tucked away in his office.

The obvious gap in access to wealth and instances of corruption have made inequality a serious topic in China. While not supposed to make important decisions, China's National People's Congress (currently in the midst of its annual session) can illustrate the government's two main policy concerns for 2008 which, according to FT.com, consists of taming inflation (which hit a 12-year high of 8.7% in February) and improving the workings of the central government to better facilitate protecting the environment (see Washington Post's article on supposedly green solar energy firms leaving waste behind in China, where the push to get into the solar energy market is having unexpected consequences) and reducing inequality. Thus in order to bypass provincial leaders able to flout the will of the center, plans are afoot to establish a number of 'super-ministries' with increased powers, despite the fierce rivalries anticipated in the streamlining process.

In addressing inequality in China there is clearly (as the President of China Merchant Bank told the People's Daily last week there to be for rural financing in China) "large room for improvement". A World Bank report released this year entitled Migrant Opportunity and the Educational Attainment of Youth in Rural China illustrated the entrenched challenges affecting the social mobility of migrant laborers, an important cog in China's economic transition.

While the opportunity to migrate has raised living standards in many rural areas of China, access to migrant employment appears to create a disincentive for continued increases in educational attainment levels among rural youth... For most individuals in rural areas, the decision not to attend high school is irreversible. When large numbers of families opt out of educational investments in favor of the relatively attractive migrant wage available to middle school graduates, the effectively resign themselves to the long-term prospect of earning considerably less than urban youth, nearly all of whom graduate from high school and who are enrolling in college in greater numbers. The decision not to enroll in further schooling increases the likely gap in the lifetime earning ability of a rural child relative to an urban child, and may therefore contribute to increases in inequality, at least for one generation, within urban areas after migration occurs.

For the 324 Chinese companies listed on China's two stock exchanges who have filed their annual reports for 2007, however, profits have nearly doubled compared with that of 2006. And as an indication of future prospects for Chinese industrial growth and profit, a survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers conducted in 2007 by market research firm GfK Roper found that Chinese products are regarded as being inferior only to American goods, and in terms of prestige products from China are held in higher regard than those of Canada, South Korea and any other developing country.

As yesteryear's model villages Nanjie and Dazhai make way for the dream world of Disneyland in Pudong, its obvious that many in China will happily go relish the arrival of Mickey and Goofy - and many others will never make it there.

Yet with people like Liu Xiufang around, an 80-year-old woman from a village in Fujian province who (the Shanghai Daily recounts) lives on 10 Yuan a day and has donated more than four million yuan to charity and public welfare over the past 20 years, it is interesting to think whether China's growing affluent class can learn something from her, as she probably did from Dazhai.

 

       

Less enthusiastic job-hunters turned up at Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong, for the city's first labor fair after the beginning of the lunar year. From China Daily,

...the job-seekers gathered there appeared not be as enthusiastic as their counterparts of years past. For the first time, the number of job-hunters fell far short of the number of vacancies advertised at the fair: 4,000 versus 7,000...

- which really disappointed employers who could only raise their salary standards 13% (on average to 1,160 yuan or $155 a month) compared to previous years. (Come to think of it, this is almost exactly how much I receive as monthly stipend as a scholarship student in China).

Yet trade unions and government officials in Guangdong have pointed out that wages in Guangzhou have failed to keep up with inflation and the overall growth rate of industrial output, and need to be increased further. Does this mean, the China Labour Bulletin wonders,

that Guangdong's trade union and labour officials are now determined to take their responsibilities seriously, and defend the rights and interests of workers in the province? Crucially, Guangdong union officials have now acknowledged that the most effective way to protect wage levels and ensure regular payment is through direct negotiations between labour and management.

Yet only time will tell, they conclude, as the actions of trade unions over the coming years will indicate whether developing collective bargaining at the grassroots level will make enterprise-level unions genuine representatives of workers' rights.

Some workers in Guangzhou, however, are wondering whether their jobs are even worth it. From Tim Johnson at China Rises (blocked on mainland China), three U.S. researchers who spent time querying 634 factory workers outside Guangzhou railway station before the spring festival found underlying concerns not only about low wages and poor working conditions but also about whether it was worth the effort at all. Suppliers desperately need to improve job satisfaction in China, the researchers concluded (I noticed though seemingly universally disparaging comments on the China Rises site to the research mentioned in the posting).

A recent article from AP (via Herald Tribune, see also China Law Blog's downplaying response) suggests that, due to pressures of regulation and rising costs for energy, materials and labor, China's economy is set to lose its claim on cheapness. Similar echoes from Frank Langfitt at NPR outlining the pressures faced by shoe, furniture and other manufacturers and smaller factories generally in China, and FT.com about the plight of Changdeng Shoe Company in Guangdong, whose company compound recently became a ghost town as the company folded in the face of

...a survival-of-the-fittest struggle affecting primarily smaller factories in relatively low-tech, labour-intensive industries...

Lastly, some hyperbole from the China Economics Blog (blocked on mainland) who quotes an article from the Peterson Institute claiming  that, without anyone noticing, the capitalists have upended the People's Republic by effecting a significant redistribution of income away from workers. This might be, they say, the mother of all redistributions. According to a few Berkeley economists, between 2002 and 2005 the share of economic output going to workers decreased by about 8 percentage points, from about 50% of GDP to 42%.

It is clear that capitalism, the CEB posting infers,

now has China in its icy grip.

I myself am overjoyed that it seems we might be in for a nice mild spring in the north of China this year round.