July 6, 2007

WHAT'S THE CHINESE FOR POTEMKIN?:

Scandals hint at reality behind China's 'miracle' (Howard W. French, July 5, 2007, International Herald Tribune)

The warning that Chinese officials reportedly gave to the World Bank was that to release such details could affect social stability, which in today's China amounts to something akin to a paramount ill.

The government's message to the public is to get on with your lives. This isn't such a big deal, Beijing's spokesmen have protested in recent days on the question of the safety of China's food exports, in what has become a sort of stock response in situations like these.

Such answers are, in fact, a fairly reliable indicator that all is not right, and one suspects that in all of these cases, what is known is the very tip of the iceberg. And the signs are growing that the Chinese public deserves a lot more credit for being able to grasp this.

In the broadest sense, what the deluge of scandals suggests is that reality is catching up with the old and familiar story line of the "Chinese miracle." Indeed, this country has been deluding itself and much of the world with the notion that healthy and lasting prosperity can be built on a foundation of counterfeiting, of exploitation and of fraud.

To keep company with the constant rejoinders about preserving stability, the prevailing creed would seem to have only one other thought: that to make money, in the immortal words of Deng Xiaoping, "is glorious."

As governing philosophies go, "Shhh, quiet, we're busy making money," is not a very inspiring one, and it leaves a country and its people without any moral or ethical compass, beyond crudities like "might makes right," or "the ends justify the means," or "I got here first."

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 6, 2007 3:53 PM
Comments

The US prosperity growth at the beginning of the industrial revolution began much the same way. Poisoned food, no workers rights, stolen technology, etc. These problems where largly resolved (excluding the stolen technology). China is now facing the same choices. Unfortunatly the social model used by China will encourage them to make the wrong choices (excluding poisoned food) because in China the state is more valuable than the people.

Posted by: James at July 6, 2007 5:38 PM

Since you asked.

Potemkin in Chinese: "Bo Jiang Jin" (波將金)
Potemkin Village: "Bo Jiang Jin cun" (波將金村)

(Note: parentheses contain Chinese characters that may not display correctly without proper encoding or language packs installed.)

Pigeon Pronunciation: Bwo Gee-ang Gene tswun

"BoJiangJin" is transliteration, approximating the sound of the Russian "Potemkin" using Chinese sounds and characters.

Bo Jiang Jin cun is used as a figure of speech in Taiwan at least. Not sure about the Mainland.

Posted by: Qiao Yang at July 6, 2007 5:48 PM

This "Miracle" will go on, just like the Reagan expansion, because of the Reagan expansion; free labor markets, free flow of capital and some sort of transparency worldwide, opened the door for the Chicoms to survive and thrive.

If world gdp isn't expect to decline for at least 80 years hence, the Middlemen (ie. Chicoms) will take their piece whilst hiding the reality behind their circus curtain indefinitely. Maybe they'll become so incompetent they'll screw it up, but it doesn't matter - look at Castro, Kim, Chavez, Mugabe, House of Saud, Iranian Mullahs - they've screwed up so bad and they're still around with no consequences. Only war internal or external looks like it will change their paths.

Posted by: KRS at July 6, 2007 6:41 PM

The difference being that Anglo-America revolutionized. The Chinese are just a late era sweatshop.

Posted by: oj at July 6, 2007 7:01 PM

Qiao:

Thanks!

Posted by: oj at July 6, 2007 7:02 PM

That's what so great about this place: one asks how to say "Potemkin" in Chinese, and we get the answer. Bravo. Well Done.

Posted by: Lou Gots at July 6, 2007 9:24 PM

Q - "Bo Jiang Jin cun is used as a figure of speech in Taiwan." Does it have the connotation as it does in English?

Fascinating as Lou notes.

A friend just returned from a trip to Taiwan and came back raving about it.

Posted by: erp at July 7, 2007 7:43 AM

It's always amusing to see people who don't believe a word the US government says accepting Chinese statistics as face value.

Posted by: Ibid at July 7, 2007 8:42 AM
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