China’s income divide: More canyon than gap

IT’S ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA to take with a grain of salt the sort of journalism in which a reporter encourages the reader to extrapolate ideas about large groups of people based on interviews with a handful of individuals. Are the examples selected illustrative of a larger truth, or were they cherry-picked to promote an agenda or a particular point of view?

These questions are compounded when the subject matter is China, a country of 1.3 billion people. Yet, whether Max Hastings, columnist for Britain’s Daily Mail, is playing it straight or playing a riff on reality, his recent articles about contemporary conditions in the country are worth reading.

Of particular interest are two pieces that present the contrast between China’s dirt poor and glorious rich. Here’s a sample from the first:

…if you think you know what poverty means, you have not met Han Yuming. He is a citizen of a China which lives a century behind the new society of skyscrapers, teeming factories and highways.

He is 62 years old, earns less than £20 a month, and lives in a hut – no, let us be honest and call it a hovel – in the mountains north-west of Beijing, less than two hours’ drive from the glittering Olympic stadiums soon to be unveiled before the world.

The yawning chasm between rich and poor is the aspect of “new China” which most frightens its government and elite. Beyond the swathe of prosperity in the east of the country live 900 million peasants who possess no share in China’s wealth, and have scant hope of gaining one.

Some 135 million people eke out an existence on less than 50p a day; Yuming is one 500 million who have less than £1 a day.

And one from the second:

A Beijing businesswoman, whom to spare her blushes we shall call Hui, gave me a guided tour of her eighth floor palace.

The apartment is a riot of gilding; purple and green carpets; a library packed with new, unread and probably unreadable books; electronic gadgetry; pools of giant goldfish; vast gold mirrors; imperial-sized beds and sofas deep enough to drown in.

The dining-room table is permanently laid for eight. The massive sunken bath and Jacuzzi look in danger of falling through into the floor below.

A whole room is devoted to shoes, racked from floor to ceiling in a fashion that would earn the envy of former Philippines First Lady and shoe queen Imelda Marcos.

My hostess, a chunky 47-year-old, has made a fortune out of trading in pharmaceuticals…

She has lately discovered religion, and her apartment boasts its own Buddhist shrine.

“Before I became religious, I was always stressed, always pressured,” she says. “Now, my Buddha master tells me I should take it easier – and I do. Buddhism has taught me about my destiny.

“I’m successful because it’s my destiny. If you’re born into a poor family, then that’s another kind of destiny.

“Any time I have a problem, my Buddha master tells me what I should do…”

It was he, she says, who urged her to get into property development.

She is now doing that, too, with notable success. She employs a workforce which will soon be 100-strong and is thinking of buying a country house with a garden.

And while you’re at it, you might be interested in his article on the Chinese middle class, which is here.