America’s Gift to China – the Curse of the Middle Class Bulge

March 3, 2011

The Atom Stack Tribune reports McDonalds is facing stiff competition in China. Today, McDonalds has more than 2100 outlets in 450 cities and towns across China.

KFC has three times as many stores serving artery clogging fried chicken, while Coca Cola reported a 26% increase in sales in China of its sodas making up for reduced sales in the US.

At the end of 2010, Starbucks reported more than 750 Starbucks locations in Greater China.

Pizza Hut food is expensive in China when compared to Chinese restaurants, which explains why Pizza Hut focuses on China’s middle class.  Pizza Hut started doing business in China in 1987. Today it operates 3,000 restaurants in 650 cities and towns.

What has been the result of all this American fast food in China?

In 1979, less than one percent of China’s population was diagnosed as diabetic. Since that time, the increase of diabetes has paralleled China’s development along with the growth of American fast food outlets in China.

A recently published study reported that the proportion of diabetics in China was nearly equal to the United States, which is almost nine percent of the adult population.

In addition, the growth of reported cases in China is growing at about 1.5 million annually on average.

The increase in diabetes in China is due to increasing obesity, lack of exercise and to poor eating habits.

Dr. Liu Hongfang of Dongzhimen Hospital in Beijing says the situation is only going to get worse as living standards improve and more people can afford to eat high-fat foods more often.

As a result, the number of diabetics will keep increasing.

The World Health Organization estimated that in the period lasting from 2006 to 2015, China would lose 558 billion dollars in national income due to heart disease, stroke and diabetes combined.

Thanks to government reforms in health care in 2009, more than 1.2 billion people now have some form of basic medical insurance. However, this health coverage is often minimal and diabetes costs more than the health care covers.

Discover China’s Health Care Today

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | America, American culture, business, China, Chinese food, Chinese middle class, food, health care | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Cause of China’s Pollution

February 26, 2011

Before criticizing and blaming China for polluting the environment, learn about the history that caused the pollution first.

The first Industrial Revolution took place in England after James Watt developed the coal/wood burning steam engine in the late 18th century. This was beginning of air and water pollution.

The second Industrial Revolution (1820-1870) helped the economic development of the United States. Then industrialization increased between 1870 and 1914.

Pollution from industries grew to epidemic proportions after 1945. In fact, the type of pollution changed significantly when industries in America and Europe began manufacturing and using synthetic materials such as plastics and DDT.

These materials are not only toxic; they accumulated in the environment and were not biodegradable. This increased rates of cancers, physical birth defects, and mental retardation.

Due to an increase in world trade after World War II and moving a significant percentage of the world’s manufacturing to Japan, then China after Mao died, the pollution created using these synthetic materials increased and pollution reached a global scale.

Most of the products manufactured in China were sold around the globe by multinational corporations such as Wal-Mart. If you buy products made in China, you are partly responsible for the pollution there. The odds are that the computer I’m using was made or assembled in China. Darn!


June 2007 – the US still has more cars on the road and buys much of what China manufactures for US companies.

Another factor was pressure from the people of China on their government to improve the standard of living for 1.3 billion people. India faced the same challenges.

The lifestyle changes taking place in China and India parallel the changes that already took place in America, Britain and Europe more than a century earlier.

In the 1960s, about 60% of Chinese labor worked in agriculture. That figure remained about the same throughout the 1960s into early 1990s. Then by the late 1990s, the farm force in rural China fell to about thirty percent.

In comparison, in 1870, 53% of US labor worked in agriculture. Today, farm labor in the US makes up 3% of workforce. The rest live in towns and cities with a middle-class demanding more synthetic products to feed the consumer lifestyle.

Discover The One Party Advantage

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, here is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

 

Note: This post first appeared on iLook China February 7, 2010 as post # 31. This revised version reappears as post # 1086.

2 Comments | America, business, China, Chinese middle class, economy, environment | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Mostly Free to be Poor

February 15, 2011

Riz Khan hosts a program for Al Jazeera English and in this twenty-two minute segment, he leads a discussion about the possibility that democracy hinders economic growth.

Khan asks, “Is a centralized system, such as China’s one party, better than democracy for growth?”

Both India and China became countries about the same time.  In 2008, India’s GDP was $1.16 trillion and China’s was about three times larger at $4.33 trillion.

There is a debate in India that China’s one party political system has allowed China to modernize and improve lifestyles easier and faster than India’s democracy.

His first guest speaker is Tarun Khanna, a professor of the Harvard School of Business, who does not agree with the argument that India’s democracy is the cause of slow growth.

His opinion is that democracy may be a faulty option but it is the best of the faulty options we have. However, he says it is true that India’s democracy has underperformed.

Then MIT Professor Yasheng Huang says in the last thirty years, the leadership in China has improved its decision-making and made many correct decisions regarding productivity.

A listener to the program sends a message from Facebook.  “All a country needs is purposeful leadership, security, vision, and justice for all. China has demonstrated all this, unlike India.”

Professor Huang disagrees with the Facebook comment.

Kahanna says that China’s strong leadership has been an asset and that even in the Communist Party there is a meritocracy of sorts, which is a system of advancement based on individual ability or achievement—something that India’s political system lacks at this time.

Regarding a dictatorship, Huang says a dictatorship wouldn’t work in India. The culture is too complex.

Kahanna agrees that a dictatorship wouldn’t work in India and says India has to improve its democracy.

Huang feels if China doesn’t change its economic structure and put more emphasis on private companies, India will be the better place to do business in regards to long-term growth.

Kahanna says India’s biggest challenge is to include as many people as possible to share in the economic growth and more than half of its population has been left in poverty.  He says the biggest challenge will be basic health care and education and there has to be more opportunities in India for more people. The caste system in India is also a problem. India’s politicians must stop politicizing the cast system.

Professor Huang then says that democracy is not a solution to solve all of society’s problems. There has to be more than free elections. However, an authoritarian system is also not the answer. He says, take the strengths of both India and China and figure a way to take advantage of them—to make them work.

Learn more at India Falling Short

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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China Reaching out to South Africa

February 9, 2011

Aaron Back of India Real Time reports that Brazil, Russia, India and China have invited South Africa to join their group of emerging economies referred to as the BRIC possibly changing that acronym to BRICSA.

Aaron asks how South Africa could join the BRIC when the “rainbow nation” lacks the main unifying characteristic of the group: a fast-growing economy.

However, my answer to Aaron is that India Real Time may have missed the fact that Brazil’s economy was also sluggish until China became a major trading partner. Now Brazil is growing at about 8% a year.

Another factor is that China is now South Africa’s largest trading partner, and Radio Netherlands Worldwide says South Africa (unlike the US) enjoys a trade surplus with China that may only grow. The Chinese ambassador Zhong Jianhua, says that it is the warm diplomatic ties between China and SA since 1998 matched by growing economic engagement, which has put SA among China’s top three African trading partners.

South Africa also has another alternative to a fast-growing economy. The CIA says, South Africa is rich in these natural resources — gold, chromium, antimony, coal, iron ore, manganese, nickel, phosphates, tin, rare earth elements, uranium, gem diamonds, platinum, copper, vanadium, salt, natural gas.

The South African Guide says, the mining industry is one of the most productive in the world and raw materials make up about 60% of the country’s exports… South Africa is also the single country in the world to produce fuel from coal.

Then the BBC reports that South Africa faces major problems. Many South Africans remain poor and unemployment is high—about 25%.

After all, what South Africa has, China needs to continue the growth of its middle class, and it was these same factors that caused China to become Brazil’s major trading partner. As the trade surplus grows in South Africa’s favor, unemployment will shrink.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | business, China, economy, environment | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Changing China through its Youth – Part 5/5

February 3, 2011

As PBS’s Frontline started its fourth year of filming in China, the subjects of their documentary were still restless rethinking their lives, their ambitions and values.

One Chinese woman (not identified) talks about a survey called the “Happiness Index”, which is practical.  It has nothing to do with the individual and society. She says, “When Chinese talk about happiness, it’s about affording the things they want to buy, the housing they want, and if they like the work they do…”

Lu Dong, who started an Internet tailoring business, says, “China is a country with no beliefs and there are no role models. All the models are materialistic.”

Although Lu Dong’s opinion may be true for many Chinese in the rising middle class, I disagree that it means everyone in China. There are role models in China’s history, and even today, there are others who will look to them as an example.

He says, “Chinese are very hungry now and hard to satisfy,” which may be a better way of stating the situation today and goes a long way to explain why rural Chinese are willing to sacrifice so much to migrate to cities and work long hours in factories for low pay.

Lu Dong says, “The water is still dirty. What I can do is make the water in my company clean… Although when I deal with the outside world I still have to deal with business the way others do. That’s another reason why I became a Christian.”

Then Ben Wu, who launched the Internet cafe, says he won’t be in the Internet cafe business for the rest of his life. His real passion is renewable energy. His father’s expertise in is solar cells. He wants to start a factory to build this product.

Dr. Zhang Yao works in a large hospital and feels an obligation to do public health work. He thinks residents in large urban hospitals could provide training in rural ones.

Zhang Jingjing is a public interest lawyer. She represented more than a 1,000 families over a power line built for the (2008) Olympics. She wants to protect China’s environment and natural resources. However, she wants to meet the right man too.

Meanwhile, the rapper, Wang Xiaolei, is achieving his dream of becoming a star. He says he has 20,000 fans. He wants to be the head of a record company. He says he firmly believes that if you work hard your dream will come true.

Wow! That sounds like many of the American children I taught during my thirty years in the classroom. How many do you believe actually achieve their dreams?

In conclusion, this PBS Frontline documentary shows us that there are no stereotypes in China. Even in a collective culture such as China, there are individuals.

Return to Changing China through its Youth – Part 4

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | business, capitalism, China, Chinese Culture, Chinese middle class, cultural differences, family values, health care | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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