Money can't buy China
happiness By Wu Zhong, China
Editor
HONG KONG - Late Chinese premier
Zhou Enlai, a couple of years before his death in
1976, once advised a visiting foreign guest how to
read and understand propaganda in the Chinese
media. He said what was being trumpeted or
glorified in "our newspapers" was exactly what
"we" needed to improve or try to attain.
Nearly 40 years later, his advice seems
still valid, even as China's economy and society
have changed profoundly. Following his advice, one
may interpret Chinese media's zealous praise of
"pursuit of happiness for the people" - a goal set
by the Chinese government recently - as an
indication that "happiness" is still
something Chinese people are
in want of, though they are much better off
economically.
Indeed, even some Chinese
officials and commentators frankly admit this. For
example, Zhang Lijuan, a columnist for
China.org.cn - the official website of the State
Council's Information Office, wrote on March 16,
"30 years' of economic reforms in China have
created an economic miracle. The government has
promoted economic growth with a GDP target every
year. But paradoxically, although people are
wealthier, they are not happier. Facing issues of
social injustice, high inflation, and a widening
gap between the rich and poor, the government has
decided to directly target happiness."
The
goal of "happiness" for the people was announced
by Premier Wen Jiabao in his Government Work
Report to the opening of the annual session of the
National People's Congress (NPC) on March 4. It is
also written into the national 12th Five-year Plan
for Social and Economic Development (2011 - 15) as
a signal of change in development strategy. In his
report, Wen said the government's work is to "let
people live more happily and with more dignity".
In an online chat with netizens earlier, Wen gave
his definition that "happiness means people live
comfortably, feel relieved and safe, and have
confidence in the future." Wen also said that
Beijing would adopt the "happiness of the people"
as a new yardstick to measure the performance of
officials, replacing the 30-year-old yardstick of
GDP growth.
Needless to say, like the
concept of GDP, the idea of using "happiness" to
measure development is not a Chinese invention.
Over past years, arduous efforts have been made in
some Western countries, the United Kingdom in
particular, to find some quantitative measurement
of "happiness" to replace GDP. So far such efforts
proven not so successful because "happiness" is
quite a subjective feeling. It would be
interesting to see how China would work out a
quantitative measurement.
Even in the
absence of a "scientific" or "quantitative"
measurement of happiness, using Wen's qualitative
definition, Chinese people are not happy.
Materially they may be living more comfortably
than before, but they certainly do not feel
relieved and safe in their daily lives. If the
Chinese government really wants to seek happiness
for people, it must strive to remove their sources
of unhappiness.
Chinese people are
certainly very unhappy or even outraged at
much-talked-about problems such as rampant social
injustice, corruption, widening wealth gaps,
unbearably high housing prices and inflation. But
apart from these issues, they lately are more
haunted with renewed fears about food safety as no
one can be sure whether the food they eat is
poisonous or harmful in some way.
On March
15, shortly after the closure of the NPC annual
session, an investigative report by China Central
Television (CCTV) revealed that Shuanghui Group,
China's largest processed meat producer based in
Luohe city in Henan province, had used
clenbuterol-contaminated pork in its meat
products. Feeding a pig with clenbuterol, a
fat-burning chemical, keeps it lean. But
clenbuterol has proven toxic to humans and China
banned using it as an additive in animal feed in
1997. Grilled by the media, Shuanghui later had to
admit that the tainted pork came from pigs raised
in one of its farms in Henan.
Over past 20
years, Shuanghui has established itself as the
most popular brand of processed meat in China,
with pork products on sale in all Chinese
provinces and cities. Pork is the favored meat of
Han Chinese, which account for over 90% of the
population. Many, if not all, have consumed
Shuanghui products. The scandal immediately
triggered a nationwide panic. Supermarkets rushed
to take Shuanghui products off their shelves.
Consumers now refrain from buying fresh pork,
especially if it is lean. If the largest meat
processor in the country could have raised pigs
with clenbuterol-added feed, it is most likely
that other smaller pig farms would also have done
so. Chinese media are busy doing follow-up
reports.
For many Chinese, the Shuanghui
scandal seems like the last straw for their
confidence in food safety, following a spate of
reports about tainted foodstuffs in recent years.
I happened to meet a group of tourists
from Beijing last week. "What concerns people
there the most lately?" I asked. "The Shuanghui
incident and food safety," they answered almost in
unison.
"People now have more money and
want to enjoy life. We Chinese savor good food
following the ancient teaching that 'food is
heaven for people.' But what food can we enjoy?
You are not even sure what you can eat safely
nowadays. Fish? They are fed with antibiotics.
Chicken? They are injected with hormones (for
quick growth). Vegetables? Too much residues of
insecticide… Not to mention faked foodstuffs. Do
you know there are now even fakes eggs on sale
now?" one of them said.
"The government
says it wants to pursue happiness for us. How can
we be happy if we need to worry about the food we
eat everyday? This is not a new problem and
Shuanghui by no means an isolated case. The
government must really do something to win back
people's confidence," another said.
Still
another joked that they were perhaps like the
Count of Monte Cristo in French writer Alexandre
Dumas' novel of the same name, who took a tiny
amount of a poison daily so that in the end he
became immune. "But Count of Monte Cristo is a
fictional figure and he only takes one kind of
poison. We don't know how many kinds of poisonous
stuff we have taken with our daily food in past
years, so perhaps we are immune to all kinds of
poisons."
China's central leaders are
apparently also aware of the problem. During the
NPC session, Vice Premier Wang Qishan in charge of
economic and financial affairs, told lawmakers
from Liaoning province: "There are indeed serious
problems regarding food safety… The whiter wheat
flour or rice looks, the more afraid people are to
buy and eat it… We deeply apologize [for not doing
a good job]."
No sooner had he spoken that
the Shuanghui scandal was exposed. From a positive
perspective, this could be interpreted as a sign
that Beijing is becoming more serious about food
safety. But in that case, how come such things are
always uncovered by the media only? Where is the
government supervision?
In many ways, the
Shuanghui incident is similar to the scandal of
Sanlu melamine-tainted baby formula exposed in
2008. Sanlu was one of China's largest processed
milk producers. Like clenbuterol, melamine is also
a strictly banned chemical but still found to have
been rampantly used as an additive to milk to
boost its protein levels.
No doubt, lax
government supervision is the blame for the use of
banned drugs. But things may not be as simple as
they appear.
An unconfirmed report said
that the party secretary of a city in Henan went
to CCTV to complain, "Why don't you brief us first
before you broadcast the report. A large
enterprise will collapse because of your report.
And the local economy will be damaged seriously."
These sentences are quite telling, whoever
said them.
Shuanghui Group's sales in 2008
already exceeded 35 billion yuan (US$5.34
billion). It ranked No 166 on the 2007 list of
China's Top 500 Enterprises. Shuanghui Group now
claims it has lost 100 million yuan in sales
everyday since the CCTV report on March 15.
One of its subsidiaries, Shuanghui
Development, is listed in Shanghai. Its share
price quickly fell 10% to the down limit on March
15 to close at 77.94 yuan. Trading of its shares
has been indefinitely suspended since then. The
Group had planned to go public as a while this
year, but may have to suspended the plan.
Such a big business certainly is seen by
local government and officials as a money tree,
which could contribute significantly not only to
the local government coffers but to officials'
pockets. Under such circumstances, who would
supervise whom? From this perspective, whatever
measures authorities may take to improve food
safety without an effective crackdown on
corruption are just like treating symptoms but not
the disease.
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