China: Growth--and growing pains.

The Daily Telegraph (London) reported the following on October 20, 2007. "For the first time in modern history, China will next year contribute more to global economic growth than the United States [US]."

The Telegraph pointed out that while China's economy was still far smaller than that of the US, because of a huge difference in the expected rate of growth of the respective countries in 2008 (China at 10.0 percent, the US at 1.9 percent), China will be actually pumping more money into the global economy than the US.

And then here is a telling comment from a very long piece in the September/October edition of Foreign Affairs (Washington). "According to a 2007 report from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, [China} has already surpassed the United States as the world's largest contributor of carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere."

Foreign Affairs's main point is that China's economic growth is undeniable, and a major achievement, but the country's neglect of the environment is serious to the point that the health of the population is clearly threatened. Example: "One research institute affiliated with SEPA [the government environmental agency] has put the total number of premature deaths in China caused by respiratory diseases related to air pollution at 400,000 a year. But this may be a conservative estimate: According to a joint research project by the World Bank and the Chinese government released this year, the total number of such deaths is 750,000 a year."

In addition to the air, China's water supply is massively unhealthy, agricultural soils are contaminated, and the Gobi desert is growing rapidly.

"Social unrest over these issues is rising," says Foreign Affairs, a development, if not addressed, that could undermine the authority of the central government and destabilize the country.

Progress, though, is being made in other areas to integrate and strengthen China's economy. A summary of legal reforms in the October 2007 edition of the China Economic Review (Shanghai) begins with, "For those who love their beef noodles, July was not a happy month."

Instant noodle eaters were unhappy at the prospect of a 20 percent rise in prices. An inquiry by China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) concluded that the noodle manufacturers were fixing prices.

The inquiry--and enforcement-- came on the heels of the enactment of China's first anti-trust law. The Review says, "The sense is that the policy is being put in place to shepherd China as it enters a more globalized and market-driven era, one in which corporate ethics and individual rights have much greater weight." Laws and procedures are riddled with loopholes, but even so, a positive direction has been firmly established.

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