A hilarious video of the US President Donald Trump showed how, during his first election campaign, he constantly mentioned China as the arch economic foe of the United States. The video showed Trump uttering China at various times and in different attires. While that was funny then, now it seems as if it was a premonition of the bad times to come, not only for the US but for the whole world. It is being reported by many western media sources that there is a strong anti-government feeling brewing within China and the reasons are both economic and political. One of the reasons put forth is the issue of handling of the coronavirus outbreak by the Chinese government.
Many young Chinese are appearing on western media openly criticizing the government for its inept and ham-handed manner of handling the crisis. China is a large country and it surprised many observers how the government could silence every single citizen after the Tiananmen Square events. Until the conflagration in Hong Kong, the outside world was being fed what the Chinese government wanted or, at best, what China baiters assumed. While decades ago, the Soviet Union was labeled as The Iron Curtain nation, China was pathetically called The Bamboo Curtain nation.
Also Read
Those were days when China was poor yet was building its strength from within.
The mid 1990s saw the emergence of a new China that started flourishing with trade and commerce spread across the globe. While the people were being suppressed, the impression across the world was that China was a success story. Especially in a country like India, it was China and China alone that became the benchmark not only for the Indian government but also for the Indian business community. While business leaders constantly talked of excelling China in exports or production, the Indian Parliament echoed with comparisons to Chinese Foreign Direct Investments and GDP growth. Back then and even now, the elite Indian ruling class remains clueless about Chinese capabilities and intrusions.
Major Indian corporates love to buy up Chinese heavy machinery such as power plants because the Chinese traders were adept at meeting demands of Indians in the sphere of over or under invoicing of goods. It is sad but true that majority of corporate-owned power plants across India operating today are the worst of Chinese products. They can be termed the worst since all of them, barring none, do not adhere to basic environmental requirements. Not only power plants but very many other Chinese products swamped India and the resultant economic and environmental distress is slowly emerging. Interestingly, China managed to take over the whole world not because of inferior goods but with the strength of punctual and mass delivery. All the good times suddenly seem to be evaporating now.
Internal voices of dissent went public first in Hong Kong but now seem to be happening in the mainland. It could be because of such discontent that China is letting out bits and pieces of information relating to domestic economic activities restarting. One such information has emanated that a new aviation company named Sanya International Airlines will be starting operations to the island destination of Hainan, home to eight million people and a free trade hub. The intention of this news being put out could be to showcase to rest of the world that all is hunky dory and China is on the path of healthy economic recovery. On the other hand, the military bravado being exhibited from the South China Sea to the eastern Ladakh border of India could be a message being given out that the Red Dragon has not lost its military punch. For China, a nation so large and vast, these are very small indications. Yet, the effort seems to be slightly verging on desperation. As the whole world is grappling with the enormous pandemic, no one really seems to have the means or energy to fact-check China’s claims of superiority at every level.
