Page 16 - Pakistan Link - October 20, 2023

P16 - PAKISTAN LINK - OCTOBER 20, 2023 COMMENTARY
China Slows down ting the high growth rates it used to. decline by 200 million people. How is
n By Nayyer Ali MD explains why China is no longer get- the working age population is going to

rom 1980 to 2010 China under- Major Chinese real estate firms are go- China going to pay the pensions of the
went a stunning transformation ing bankrupt. For China, this slowing massive number of elderly on the backs
Fas it lifted up from one of the growth is a huge problem. The only so- of a much smaller working popula-
most impoverished nations on Earth lution is to reduce investment to 25% tion? China cannot replace its missing
to an economic giant of GDP and shift the economy into millions with immigration, it is not a
with many predicting consumption mode. This will result in country that is willing to accept tens
it would surpass even very slow growth of GDP but signifi- of millions from Africa. The Chinese
the US as the world’s cantly higher standard of living for the Communist Party has led China into a
largest economy. But average Chinese. dead end.
in the last decade, Japan experienced decades of rapid For the world, this means that this
the China model growth that eventually slowed down century will still be dominated by
has gradually slowed and finally has around 1990. Since then, it has grown American power. While China’s pop-
stalled out, with huge implications for much more slowly. The big differ- ulation is expected to decline to 700
who will be the dominant power in ence is that Japan slowed down when million by 2100, the US is expected to
the 21st century. Instead of rapid growth continuing, the last decade has seen China slowdown. its GDP per person had reached 60% rise to 400 million. But what makes US
China’s growth was driven by its Growth is now only 3-4% per year and is predicted to fall even further - OMFIF of the American level, while China is power so dominant is not just its own
shift to capitalism from the Maoist slowing down after only reaching about economy, but the fact that it has such a
communism it had suffered under was far better than life in the country- fuel economic growth. 25% of the US level. The richest Chi- wide alliance system. The US can rely
since the Chinese Communist Party side. China’s economy grew at a break- The Chinese growth model was nese province is still poorer than the on Britain, Australia, and Canada, along

seized power in a civil war in 1949. neck pace, sometimes more than 10% based on massive investment paid for poorest American state. The gleaming with NATO in Europe, and Japan and
Mao’s rule was marked by one mas- in a single year. Over the course of the by economic policies that forced Chi- skyscrapers of Shanghai obscure the South Korea and Taiwan in Asia, and
sive failure after another, the largest last several decades, hundreds of mil- nese to save and to channel those sav- reality that China is still a rather poor Israel and Saudi Arabia in the Middle

was the Great Leap Forward. This was lions of Chinese were lifted out of ab- ings to companies that would invest. country by Western standards. East. Other nations that are not as close
a deeply misguided attempt to force solute poverty. While all economies need investment The Chinese people have them- to the US, but perceive China as a threat
Chinese peasants to turn their villages The Chinese colossus looked un- to pay for economic growth, China has selves become extremely pessimistic include the Philippines, Indonesia, In-

into centers of heavy industry in the stoppable. If it continued to grow at a very unbalanced approach to this. about the future. Chinese women dia, and Vietnam. Vietnam is actually
early 1960’s. The collapse of farming 7-10% per year, it was just a matter Most economies invest about 20-25% have basically gone on a baby strike, now looking to buy American military
that resulted created a massive famine of time before China overtook the US of GDP, with the rest going to con- the most tangible way in which young equipment. China’s junior partner,
that took the lives of up to 50 million as the world’s largest economy. Many sumption. China has maintained in- people can make clear their dark view Russia, is getting knocked down by the
Chinese, before Mao gave up on his observers breathlessly speculated that vestment rates of 40-45% of GDP and of their own prospects. New Chinese war in Ukraine and has lost any claim it
scheme. China would topple the US as the done so by restricting household con- college graduates are now struggling has to great power status.
But starting around 1980, and ac- dominant global power as surely as day sumption. This massive investment has to find good employment. China’s The story of China’s economic
celerating in the 1990’s, China opened follows night. paid for high-speed rails, new airports, birthrate has collapsed from 17 mil- miracle is over. It now faces very diffi-

its economy to foreign investors and But this prediction has clearly failed. homes and apartments, roads, power lion babies per year back in 2015 to cult choices, and its dictatorship of the
steadily became the workshop of the Instead of rapid growth continuing, the plants, bridges, and many other such just 9 million in 2022. This amounts Communist Party has concentrated
world, with a massive expansion of low last decade has seen China slowdown. projects. to only about 1 baby per lifetime for power in the hands of Xi Jinping. Xi

tech and then medium tech manufac- Growth is now only 3-4% per year and The problem for China is that it has each woman, less than half the number has been unable to handle the chal-

turing. Tens of millions of Chinese is predicted to fall even further. Chi- run out of useful investments. Much of needed to keep the population stable. lenges of the last decade, and with him
peasants moved to the cities to begin na’s working age population peaked the investment is going to homes and China was passed by India this last in power for the foreseeable future, it is
working in these factories. While pay around 2015, and so it can no longer apartments that sit empty and bridges year and is no longer the world’s most hard to paint a positive picture of what
was still low by Western standards, it rely on a rapidly growing work force to to nowhere. This useless investment populous country. In the next 30 years, awaits the Chinese people.

n By Beena Sarwar Sara Suleri: Beyond Borders
Boston, MA

ur bataiye” – tell me more,
a polite invitation to keep
“Atalking. I can hear her
voice, perhaps naturally husky, made
deeper with years of
cigarette smoking and
perhaps more recent-
ly with pain and other
medications.
She’d send her love
to Pakistan whenever
I’d call before flying out from Boston, Azra Raza and Sara Suleri, May 28, 2020 – You Tube
where we had both ended up around
ten years ago – she after retiring as gaunt one I know reads from her chap- – I send her the fragrance of the Lahore
Professor Emeritus of English from ter on older sister Ifat from her iconic spring and nargis flowers.
Yale University. I had transplanted my- Despite her frailty, she has everyone riveted with anecdotes drawn from book Meatless Days. In September 2020, Sara sells her
self from my home city Karachi where her long association with Asma in Lahore. There are poignant pauses and Boston apartment and transplants the
I was editing Aman Ki Asha, hope for audience laughter. She speaks of Asma’s sincerity, courage and authenticity – Covid rampant contents to Bellingham, a suburb of Se-
peace – between India and Pakistan. traits that apply equally to Sara herself Walking across the Charles River attle. I’m moved by her call the day be-
“Dream on!” I hear Sara say. And bridge on a cold February afternoon, I fore she leaves. There’s a finality about
yet, she agrees, it’s important to keep strong, despite all the years away. If lat, younger by five years. call Sara. With Covid rampant, meet- the goodbye. Who knows when we’ll
going. She’s a hundred percent sup- asked, she’d identify herself as Paki- There’s a recording of the event on- ings are impossible. Over the landline meet again.
portive of this, and our push for a re- stani – “never American-Pakistani”. It’s a big move but she can now be
gional approach – the South Asia Peace When I’d call Sara after returning near Tillat in Vancouver, Canada, an
Action Network, or Sapan, the more from Pakistan, she’d be eager to know hour-and-a-half drive away. They are
recent endeavor, launched last year what I did, where I went, who I met. excited about being so close to each
with a wonderful group of inter-gen- On my return in February 2020 – B.C., other. Tillat could visit Sara in Boston
erational, cross-border peace mongers. before Covid – I flew back from Islam- only a couple of times a year.
Sara’s name is on Sapan’s Founding abad, having recently visited Lahore There’s no way of knowing when the
Charter calling on Southasian nations to where Sara grew up and where I lived pandemic will end or that it will drag
institute soft borders and visa-free South for a little over a decade in the 1990s. on so long. Soon after the move, the
Asia, to allow freedom of trade and trav- She was 23 when she left the city in borders closed again. Sara and Tillat.
el to each other’s citizens, ensure human 1976. I was just a little older when I So near and yet so far.
rights and dignity for all their citizens moved there from Karachi in 1988. Since the border reopened last sum-
and to cooperate in all areas including Sara spent most of her adult life in mer, Tillat could be with Sara every
public health, culture and legal reform, America but made frequent visits to week for several days. Comfortingly,
education and environment. Pakistan, until health issues prevented she and other family members were by
her travel back. Her last visit may have Raza Rumi with Sara Suleri, February 2018 - Photo: Beena Sarwar Sara’s side when she took her last breath
Roots been at the Second Karachi Literature at home on March 20. She was 68.
Her roots to the region remained Festival in 2011, guesses her sister Til- line. A more filled-out Sara than the – she has stopped using her cell phone (Continued on page 23)
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