A Brief background about China
China is one of the culture-rich countries in the world. If we are to look at its history, one could say that China has experienced a lot of cultural and other type of discrimination even before the start of the 2 world wars.
According to many historians, many of today’s technologies and tools were pioneered by ancient chines inventors. Well, this could really be possible because in China, a lot of things usually happen after every dynasty.
China also showed great potentials in the field of Astronomy. They were actually the first ones who were able to document and witness a supernova, although technology during that time was not high enough for them to document it in such a way that could let us witness what they saw today. And perhaps, one of the most remarkable things about China is its participation in the Global economy.
Yes, it could be considered an influential country in terms of science and technology and even in Astronomy but China will always be known by the world as one of the most influential countries in terms of the global economy.
So, what is the purpose of knowing these things? Well, this information could help us understand China in a deeper sense, which is also the aim of this paper. This information will also serve as evidences that China is a competitive country.
Introduction
China is experiencing a major breakthrough in many aspects of state growth. Here, we could include population (China is one of the most heavily populated countries in the world), size of culture and extent of influence and of course, the most remarkable and alarming for some, military influence and might.
According to Jacques Martin (2010), by the year 2025, the size of the Chinese colony would be almost comparable with the size of the current US colony and that somewhere by the year 2050, if China’s growth would continue and not be halted by any external factor whatsoever, its colony would be twice the size of the American colony. What’s more alarming is that these data had been drawn before the start of the western financial crisis in which America was a famous participant. So, what could possibly be the effect of that? It could mean that the predicted year on the data presented by Jacques would be sooner than expected.
The Right Approach To Understand China
First of all, China is a huge country. It has a stunning population count, according to the CIA (2011) of approximately 1.3 billion. Now that’s a lot. It is really surprising how a developing country could become the world’s largest economy. That alone is simply hard to understand for experts because majority of them are actually expecting that western and already developed economies will inevitably claim the throne. Unfortunately, their predictions were wrong and China took everything away from them.
It wouldn’t usually be easy to understand what China is because according to Jacques (2010, China is not the same from western countries and it will never be. So, we do not have a choice but to understand what china is for we can never compare the western countries with China. Jacques stated something about the three building blocks about China that everyone could use to have a better grasp about what really China is and here they are.
China is not just a nation
In the hundred years of existence of the economically rich China, a lot of people have considered China as just a simple country. Well it is not. China has been under a great deal of changes more than a hundred years ago. Some of the facts that could serve as hard evidences about that would be the different dynasties and eras that occurred through china’s history.
If we are to review China’s history, we could clearly see how it emerged as a small nation during the Qin dynasty (also known as the birth of modern China) and how that particular dynasty was replaced with another, the Han Dynasty.
With the rise of the Han dynasty, Chinese influence and territorial boundaries expanded and the process of changing and evolving from one dynasty to another continued until we could finally see the whole lot of changes that took place in today’s China. But what makes China different from the state is the way it has been shaped. Western States have been shaped as a nation-state while China has been shaped by their sense of civilization.
China has a very different conception about race
Unity is one of the most important values for Chinese. If you are going to take a survey and ask the 1.3 billion people living in China what their original race is, almost 90 percent of them would answer that they came from the Hans.
This is pure evidence that China is actually a country with only a single race. If we are to compare these findings with other countries like India, United States, Indonesia and Brazil, it would turn out that China is a very different country in terms of race conception. All of the countries that were just mentioned except for China were multiracial ones. Well, the answer to the question why it china turned out like this is once again attributed to China’s being shaped by their sense of civilization., characterized by their powerful grain of cultural identity.
Relationship between State and Society
We could find the greatest difference between China and any other western State in this 3rd building block. The state in China is treated very differently. It is treated as if it is the only thing that is right in their society. This is perhaps the reason why there hasn’t been much revolts and anti-government movements in china. And to sum this part up, the China’s state has no rivals when it comes to power unlike most American and European States.
Why The West Cannot Understand China
The very reason why the west and most countries in the world could not understand China and how it behaves and reacts to world events is simply because China has been guided all along by their sense of civilization and not just a nation. It is as if China is operating under a very different kind of paradigm (Jacques, 2010).
Parameters that are used to describe and measure developments and milestones of a western country should never be used to gauge the accomplishments and milestones of China because China is very different from the US and these two entities will always are different from one another.
Extraordinary Infrastructure Projects in China
In the past, China tried to create numerous simple infrastructures and landscape modifications in an effort to connect their capital to as many parts of the countries. Now, China is trying to embark on a more sophisticated project, a project that focuses on building more advanced infrastructures like high-speed trains, etc. Based on the type of infrastructure improvements that China is trying to accomplish, it seems that they are aiming for a faster-paced economy and trade and an easier and faster means of transportation.
Above all else, one of China’s primary goals is to increase accessibility to the capital, which is Beijing by creating a more sophisticated network of roads, highways and rail roads (China Daily, 2011). The biggest and most significant problems that have stunned the Chinese economy before is their lack of roads.
Without roads, there could be no means of transportation for trade and technically any form or merchandise. According to a famous Chinese saying, “If you want to be rich, you have to build roads first” (Giang & Johnson, 2011). Well, based on Chinese project prioritization today, it seems that they are really doing practical applications of this quotation.
Some examples of the infrastructures that China had focused on in the last couple of years are the world’s longest sea bridge, a high-speed railway and the longest gas pipelines. These are only some of the many high-end infrastructure projects in China.
However, there were some problems encountered by China’s government despite the promising outlook that their past infrastructure projects have projected. Two of the biggest problems in China in the year 2008 were Energy and Transportation Problems.
Because of this, China tried to address this problems as swift and as accurate as they can. However, they really cannot eliminate some of the inevitable effects of having a below average transportation network both for merchants and mass transit. One major problem that arose while they are trying to build roads and bigger transportation networks as a solution to their problem is the fall down of Chinese stock prices.
Now, it is very evident that China is only trying to address their problems the soonest time possible by setting the investment them for the coming years. As a nation, I think China is acting very appropriately in solving their problems and besides, transportation is considered a major factor in China’s economy.
Another problem that the Chinese failed to address was the public’s satisfaction level with regards to the building of these transportation systems. Some Chinese citizens feel as if the railroads and the newly-built and remodeled roads were not really made for them but for the communist leaders of the country. However, I doubt that China would build almost countless and immeasurable roads and transportation networks for that sole purpose because China’s priority is their economy and not the welfare of the leaders after all.
Conclusion
Instead of trying to compare the two great countries in terms of economy and military might (common topics in news reports of today), it would be better if we could just appreciate the US and other western countries just the way they are and China, the same way how we would appreciate western states.
This way, we could show our support for both sides and from that; we could promote and raise unity. We should also accept the fact that China will never be a western country geographically and culturally because it belongs to the east and only God could change that.
References
Jacques, Martin. Understanding the rise of China. Tedsalon London, 2010. Film
CIA. East and Southeast China. World Factbook. CIA, November 10, 2011. December 2011.
<https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html>
China Daily. New Transport Infrastructure Projects Drive Growth. China Daily.com. December
2011. December 2011. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-12/05/content_14211230.htm.
Giang, V., & Johnson, R. 108 Giant Chinese Infrastructure Project That are Reshaping the
World. Businessinsider.com. December 2011. December 2011. http://www.businessinsider.com/108-giant-chinese-infrastructure-projects-that-are-reshaping-the-world-2011-12.
