China = the new Japan?
Reading Japanese history at the same time as Asian editions of the IHT, FT and the Economist that pay even more attention to China than the press back home, there are an awful lot of parrallels between Japan (mainly of the 60s and 70s, but come going back to the Meiji era in the late 19th century) and China now:
- Dominates the cheap plastic toys industry
- Dominates shipbuilding
- The level of imports to the US raises protectionist fears
- Pressure from the US government to raise the level of the currency
- A (more or less) one party state that relies on boosting nationalism and doubling incomes to keep down protest movements
- Using the Olympics to show that the country is now modern and a world power
- The goods made are considered cheap and derivative, and sometimes use foreign-sounding names to hide their origin
- Size of the economy goes from outside the top ten into the top three and then to second place after the US
- Mass destruction of the traditional architecture in the cities
- Terrible pollution problems
- Government campaigns to stamp out personal habits that foreigners might find unacceptable
- Starts getting the economic power to by “big ticket” items abroad
- Competes for the title of having the world’s biggest city
- I’m sure there are others…
Given the similarities in the starting point, the question is: Is Shanghai therefore going to end up as the same clean, hassle free kind of city as Tokyo? Can’t see it myself…