We cleared immigration in Pudong International Airport and staggered into the arrivals hall, dazed and confused after 20 hours of travel. Two airport functionaries—call them Mr. Li and Mr. Wang—noticed us and politely asked if they could help. No thanks, we said, we’re just looking for the Marriott courtesy desk. Wrong answer: we wandered away, but in a minute Mr. Li and Mr. Wang were back, asking where we were going and could they help. They would not take “no” for an answer. In China clueless tourists, wandering aimlessly in an airport until they get their bearings, are a big no no. In Newark Airport, you could wander for days and no one would notice. Not in China. Everything is noticed.
Surveillance cameras are everywhere. I mean everywhere–even back alleys too narrow to accommodate a car. If you leave something in a cab in Shanghai, you can go to the police station and their cameras will tell you which cab you left it in.
When you catch a train to another city, the ticket does not just state the train number, time of departure, destination, etc. It also specifies which waiting room you are to sit in. And in the waiting room, passengers for each departing train are assigned a specific seating area. Plus, there is a big sign reminding travellers “your train ticket must match your personal identification documents.”
Tourists’ visas are scrutinized closely by immigration officials and hotel personnel. The visa states your date of birth, so Big Brother graciously left a birthday cake for my wife in our hotel room. Tasty but creepy.
The Communist presence is not excessive, but you get the message. Enter a bookstore, and in the front is a prominently displayed a pile of a book—a very special book, the Collected Speeches of China’s President, Xi Jinping. On the famous Bund, the riverfront avenue that once functioned as Shanghai’s Wall Street, I counted no less than 36 PRC red flags, flying proudly over the no-longer-capitalist boulevard. In the hotel the only readily available newspapers are the Shanghai Daily and its big brother, the China Daily. They both spout the Party Line, though I did find many of the stories informative and amusing.
An Information-less Service Economy?
Here’s why tight social control matters to the economy. China’s days as a low-wage manufacturing powerhouse are ending. Once upon a time GDP could grow 10% annually because young people left tiny inefficient farms to work in gleaming new factories, where their productivity (output per hour worked) was ten times higher. Those days are over because of A) the law of large numbers, B) key export markets such as Europe and Japan are stagnant, C) wages are lower in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia. Meanwhile another key growth driver, housing construction, is slowing.
Accordingly, China wants to shift to GDP growth driven by domestic consumption and service industries. But services require the free flow of information, which does not exist in China. Consider:
- You literally cannot find a Wall Street Journal or Financial Times on any newsstand in Shanghai. If you’re lucky you might score a variant in your hotel, such as the Asia Wall Street Journal, with stale day-old articles.
- Many western websites are blocked in Shanghai, including ones that have nothing to do with politics, such as the United Airlines website. (For some strange reason, the Drudge Report is exempted.)
- You don’t have a choice of Shanghai maps; the concierge gave us one and when we asked where we could go to buy a bigger and better map he seemed perplexed. One map fits all in Shanghai.
The information shortage hinders tourism, potentially a huge service export for China. For example a big potential tourist attraction is the city of Suzhou, a medium-sized city on the Grand Canal that is famous for its traditional Chinese gardens. Four of the gardens are considered “World Class;” several others are worth visiting. Only a half hour outside Shanghai by bullet train, it should be a great day trip for tourists based in Shanghai. But right now Suzhou is difficult to visit because there is almost no tourist-friendly information such as maps, bus routes, or clear signs indicating where the gardens are located. You walk out of the train station and are pestered by shady characters in pedicabs who speak no English and all hawk the same faded garden brochure. We wandered around the town, which admittedly was rather interesting, and eventually managed to find two excellent gardens. However, it was a tedious, tiring, frustrating day. The Suzhou silk museum was closed, and we ended up killing four hours in the train station.
While China’s service sector needs more free-flowing information, it has more than enough labor. The Shanghai area has millions of under-employed people working in tiny shops with tiny inventories, or operating pedi-cabs, or just hanging out on the sidewalk playing cards. It’s common to see eight or ten men (never women) attentively clustered around a card game.
Copyright Thomas Doerflinger 2014. All Rights Reserved.
