There was a time when what happened in China had minimal impact on our lives. Those days are gone. What happens in China no longer stays in China. The Asian behemoth is underwriting U.S. debt to the tune of $1 trillion and growing, has the fastest-growing large economy in the world, has made more autos than America for five months in a row, and is spewing ever-more pollution that hastens global climate change.

Since the opening of China to the world by Deng Xiaoping, the leader who followed Mao Zedong, China is a rising economic superpower. The Chinese economy has grown by double digits for the past 20 years. I often feel like a kid in a candy shop each time I visit. There is so much new development to absorb, and on such a massive scale.

It all adds up to countless business opportunities in China for American companies willing to be creative and innovative. It also points to an important role for state government to play, once it stops looking at China through a rearview mirror and recognizes the reality of the situation and the enormity of the opportunities.

The Chinese market, with 1.3 billion people and a rising middle class, is the mother lode of 21st century global commerce. More than 300 million Chinese people have risen out of poverty in the last quarter century. The Chinese auto market has mirrored that nation’s double-digit economic growth for 20 years.

For anyone who has traveled in China recently, burning eyes and congested lungs testify that economic development has come with a stiff environmental price — polluted air, rivers, streams and lakes. The factories that are producing much of what will be under our Christmas trees this year are fueled by dirty coal spewing out soot and fouling the air and water. Further complicating the problem is growing auto pollution. It is predicted that the Chinese auto market will surpass the U.S. market in 10 years, and there will be seven times the number of cars on China roadways in 2020 than there were in 2004.

China’s energy needs are as great or greater than their environmental needs as they continue to emerge from the horrors of the Cultural Revolution and other ill-forged national policies that held the sleeping dragon back for much of the 20th Century. The Chinese need to invest in energy production in an environmentally sensible way. According to the U.S. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, the Chinese will need to invest nearly $2 trillion in new power plants and transmission by 2030.

Many reports coming out of China point to the fact that Chinese leaders are recognizing the huge problem of pollution and encouraging new green technology to address these issues, lest they choke off the economic dragon that is lifting many Chinese out of poverty and providing the stability the Chinese Communist Party will pay any price to maintain.

At a time when the fog of decline and pessimism hangs over certain American cities like a cloud of pollution over Beijing, those cities can fuel their own economic rise by helping the Chinese meet their challenges on the broad fronts of economic development, energy production and pollution reduction.

 

Article source: http://domemagazine.com/blogs/cov0909

Warning：The use of any news and articles published on eChinacities.com without written permission from eChinacities.com constitutes copyright infringement, and legal action can be taken.