I lived in Beijing for several years when I was a child. Although the Cultural Revolution was a painful memory for many Chinese, I liked Beijing very much while I lived there.
As a child, I might be among the very few who did not experience much pressure from the revolutions or cultural campaigns. At that time, residents of the nation’s capital were guaranteed a good food supply and public order was good. I never spotted any beggars on the street or encountered any thieves in our neighborhood.
However, when my family moved back to our hometown in south China in the 1970s, for the first time in my life I met with a group of beggars—in Wuhan, capital city of Hubei Province, at a restaurant near the Hankou Train Station.
Within 30 minutes I also met a thief, and I was really shocked.
Another thing that shocked me in southern China was that everyone needs a coupon to purchase meat, fish, eggs, and tofu, which was absolutely unheard of in Beijing. This was because every family had a quota for the purchase of such items.
As I visited more cities in China, I realized that China is not a “flat-structured country.” Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou are first tier cities, other medium to large cities are the second, and the countryside is the third. The rural areas in western China belong to the “sixth tier” in this hierarchy.
According to official statistics, the number of long-term residents in Beijing is 19.72 million with 12.46 million having a local residential ID. Another 7.26 million live in Beijing for more than half a year each year. There is no data for migrants, including petitioners.
A new management plan for the subdivisions is meant to reduce the number of residents in Beijing to 18 million by 2020. Obviously, this plan is intended to drive away poor people who came to Beijing from other areas and restore Beijing to the era of the 1970s, when public order was well maintained.
‘Beijing Advantages’
Why do outsiders want to live in Beijing?
It is because Beijing is different from other capital cities in the world, and China is different from other countries. In the United States, the living standard in Washington, D.C., is not necessarily better than that in Minnesota.
In China, Beijing is completely different from other cities. There are more opportunities, better social welfare, and more “cultural bonus values” (translator’s note: Cultural bonus value is a new term coined by an economist in China. It means a certain product may not be superior to another similar product in quality and functionality, but because of the producer’s cultural background, it has a higher value than its peers. The economist uses this term to explain why Chinese consumers are willing to pay more for products made in Western countries.).
It is precisely political power that creates these “Beijing advantages.” It is the same as the situation in 1970s when Beijing residents were able to purchase unlimited amount of eggs and tofu.
Western media ridiculed the big traffic jam from the perspective of economic development, but economic development was not the cause of this traffic jam.
There are altogether 12 highways going through Beijing, twice as many as those in Zhengzhou and Wuhan, the two centrally located cities.
Any vehicle going from Northeastern China to Northern China or Western China must travel on one of Beijing’s highways. This Roman-style or Qing Dynasty-style highway network is not required by economic or social development. It is required by the need for political power.
Inside the Second-Ring Road
Chinese people joke, “Anyone who has not been to Beijing does not know how low his official rank is.”
Some people have added that, as a matter of fact, the wealthiest families are also clustered in Beijing. Therefore, we could also say, “Anyone who has not been to Beijing does not know how poor he is.”
The guidance of commercial and economic activities is done by individuals who have clustered near the political power.
In China, everything, from the bigger issues such as state development strategy and changes in foreign policy, to the relatively smaller issues such as what information should be made available to Internet users, is determined by a handful of people living within the Second-Ring Road of Beijing. This is a city with a power jam.
While China’s recent economic development resulted from introducing the Western economic system starting in the 1980s, China is still a society centered around political power.
The overall structure is no different from the Qing dynasty 100 years ago. Be it politics, economics, or culture, every aspect of society is operated around political power.
The jam on the Beijing-Tibet highway was not a traffic jam, it was a power jam. It seems that the Chinese regime has also realized this problem; however, they do not have any intention of changing the current situation, at least in the near future.
Originally written in Chinese, this article has been translated and edited. This article was first published in New Epoch Magazine.
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