Change in China

WITH Hu Jintao’s election as secretary-general of the Communist Party, leadership in China passes on to the fourth generation. After Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, 59-year-old Hu is now the supreme leader of China’s 1.3 billion people. He will also become president when Jiang leaves this ceremonial office in March. In what has been described as the smoothest transfer of power in Communist China’s history, the 16th Party Congress elected a new set of leaders and dropped such veterans and builders as Jiang, prime minister Zhou Rongji and parliament president Li Peng, none of whom chose to stand for re-election. Hu was the only member of the all-powerful seven-man standing committee of the Politburo to be re-elected to the Central Committee.

The new committee is relatively young, 180 of its members are new, generals above 70 have been retired, 20 per cent of the members are under 50, the CC’s average age is 54.4, (compared to 59.6 of the outgoing CC), and 98.6 of the members are graduates. Yet, Jiang may still remain as something of a grey eminence. He has not only been elected chairman of the military commission, he has his men from his Shanghai power base placed in key positions, including the Politburo. Hu, thus, will find himself surrounded by Jiang’s men at least for a couple of years.

Nominated by Deng as Jiang’s deputy, Hu assumes office at a time when China’s economy is booming. The revolutionary changes affected by Deng have dramatically transformed China into an economic giant. In terms of purchasing power parity, its economy is second only to America’s, and the GDP is expected to exceed $ 1.20 trillion. The task before Hu is to carry forward Deng’s reforms and build China according to what Deng called “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” In keeping with this spirit of change and modernization, the congress has also amended the party constitution. In what could be considered a tribute to Jiang, the constitution now includes Jiang’s “Three Representations” along with Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory. The addition throws open the party to millionaire businessmen in keeping with Jiang’s belief that the party should accommodate “advanced social productive forces.”

However, all is not well with China, and Hu will have to correct the social and economic imbalances that have developed as a result of the rapid economic changes. There is a wide gap between rich and poor. While the cities are booming, there is poverty in the countryside. The state-managed industrial sector is shedding workers, thus contributing to unemployment, the banking sector is ailing, while the incomes of city dwellers have risen by 8.5 per cent and those of the rural people by only 4.2 per cent. What China needs is less ideological rigidity and more pragmatism to continue the country’s transformation from a planned economy to a socialist market economy. In practical terms this means integration of the economy with the world, continued modernization, and cultural liberalization to build what Deng called “Xiaokang” or a “well-off society.”

In foreign policy, its friends will expect China to continue to display maturity and responsibility. While it does have frictions with Washington on a number of issues, including Taiwan, one should expect Hu to maintain friendly relations with the US, because it needs America’s economy and its investment. As China’s position on Iraq has shown, the world looks to Beijing to continue to work with other powers, especially France, Germany and Russia, to help exert a healthy influence in an environment threatened by the Bush administration’s unilateralism and its arrogant credo of pre-emption.

Slow mechanization

THE slow increase in farm mechanization in Punjab, as indicated in the latest agriculture machinery census, is a pointer to the technical and economic constraints involved in the development of the province’s agricultural economy. Tractors touched the figure of 410,000 in 2001-2002, rising from 252,861 in 1994-95. Tubewells rose to just over 500,000 during the same period, while the largest increase was in the number of threshers, to an estimated 185,000. Although the biggest fear of mechanization was that it would lead to broad labour displacement, it is not clear from the census how far the slow pace of mechanization has affected agrarian jobs and cropping intensity. It is widely believed on the basis of empirical evidence that use of tractors and availability of tubewell water allow for an increase in cropping intensities, leading to a rise in production and consequently greater overall employment.

Unfortunately, technology has mainly been limited to land and seedbed preparation. Availability of farm power has been inadequate for operations like deep tillage, sub-soiling, ridging and weeding. The government has allowed liberal imports of tractors and improved the institutional support for their sale and distribution, but there have been hints of bias against their use by small farmers. The latter also have complaints over the high cost of tractors and other inputs. Their counterparts in many other Asian states and particularly in Europe and America are getting subsidies running into billions which are denied to them, making agriculture a low-profit option. In the circumstances, the ordinary Pakistani farmer can hardly be expected to go in for increased mechanization. Some of the benefits of it can still be made available by promoting the use of small-scale technology, making improvements in traditional tools and implements, and by reducing input costs. The potential for agrarian jobs is considerable if mechanization is pursued in a rational and judicious manner. Tubewells, for example, have linkages with rural industry and services, while large tractors do not have the same advantage on small farms. Therefore, equipment suitable for smaller parcels of land which can be serviced by rural industry and facilitate development of appropriate technology can play a major role in promoting agricultural development.

Speed-breaker menace

IT is high time the authorities, notably Karachi’s city government, began paying attention to removing some of the more dangerous speed-breakers on the city’s roads. According to a report, an official survey recently found that almost 60 per cent of all speed-breakers were built in violation of standard specifications and were more likely to cause rather than prevent accidents. In fact, a drive through many of Karachi’s major thoroughfares and side-streets would show that speed-breakers are built almost everywhere, and in many cases they are so designed and located that they are more a traffic hazard than a device to prevent speeding on crowded stretches of roads.

If built properly and identified in a manner clearly visible from a reasonable distance, speed-breakers can play an important role in preventing reckless driving, speeding and mishaps. In fact, that is precisely why they are used, rather successfully, the world over by traffic authorities. As far as Karachi is concerned, the authorities should see to it that where speed-breakers are essential, they are built in a manner so that their intended aim of preventing accidents or speeding is served. Most of those that do not conform to specifications are usually too high and can damage vehicles. Other than that, many are not identified in a manner clearly visible to road users, either by luminous paint or a sign placed well in advance. The city authorities in conjunction with the Traffic Engineering Bureau should examine this situation and make modifications where necessary so that the real aim of preventing traffic accidents is achieved.