The China Paradox

...In the '80s, although most Maoist measures were abolished, the Maoist atmosphere lingered...

...When Mao died m 1976, he left behind a devoted cohort, the Gang of Four, led by his wife...

...In the evening, watching the yuppies in expensive casual clothes drift in and out of a nearby nightspot throbbing with disco music, flickering candles and strobe lights, an onlooker could easily think of the hectic decadence of the fìnde-siecle...

...Today, aside from the numerous new buildings, old houses are painted with new colors and people are no longer reluctant to talk to strangers...

...They were not seriously considered...

...Hardly likely...

...Miles of industrial land along the Huangpu River are being upgraded as well...

...Combing through a large state-owned bookstore that used to sell only ideological tomes, I found the shelves filled with volumes on travel, music, traditional theater, food and cooking, exercise and health, feminine dresses through the ages, and Western philosophers like Jean Jacques Rousseau and Bertrand Russell...

...Not every change one notices is physical...

...Its wraparound picture windows overlook the whole of Shanghai...

...Whether this is seen as a temporary measure for a transitional period or is meant to be permanent, no one can say...

...The rapid development of urban areas, in fact, has widened the economic gap between the newly rich urbanités and the peasants...

...Since individual citizens and outside investors can reap profits from the consumer economy, it denotes capitalism...

...I asked why...

...Another problem is that China's four major banks, all state owned, are saddled with $500 billion in bad loans, a horrendous amount when compared to its Gross Domestic Product of $1.1 trillion...

...some are more subtle, and perhaps more revealing of the prevailing atmosphere...

...Shanghai will host the 2010 World's Fair...

...On Sunday mornings, throngs of young men and women drift into the vicinity to practice conversational English with strangers at what has come to be called the "English Corner...

...What is happening in China may confound not only idealists and ideologues but even the level-headed politicians of the world, because there is no existing frame of reference, and the characteristics keep on changing...

...Shanghai, my hometown, was a unique place...

...I left China—where I was born, brought up and educated—as a young expatriate toward the end of the civil war in 1949...

...Congested boulevards in big cities like Shanghai and Beijing have large stateof-the-art traffic signals that show the exact number of remaining seconds of red or green lights...

...TECHNICALLY it Still is...

...An American sex therapist told me that on her first visit to China more than a decade ago, her questions about sexuality were met with red-faced silence...

...According to travelers in China who have just revisited it, the difference on virtually every level is striking...

...Farmers in coastal areas are reaping some trickle-down benefits of the urban reconstruction...

...So the Chinese Communist Party is no longer totalitarian, but it continues to be authoritarian...

...With the assumption of power by a fourth generation of leadership, the policies of what is often referred to as the "Shanghai clique" are expected to continue...

...has been completely rebuilt into a spanking new traditional-style tourist attraction...

...Today's middleaged, former Red Guards, tend to dismiss their rampage as misguided teenage folly...

...On Thunder Peak, near West Lake, an ancient brick pagoda that attracted Marco Polo collapsed of old age in 1924...

...Of course, if there is a prolonged global depression, China is not about to enjoy unlimited prosperity alone...

...As a result, he was succeeded by two of the city's former mayors, Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji —who this past March retired themselves as Party Chief and Prime Minister, respectively...

...Hong, a best-selling writer, lectures all over China, including the offices of government ministries where Party members listen in rapt attention to his advice to "heal yourself" and "love yourself," then crowd around him for his autograph...

...Consequently, the government is reaping enormous income by selling only occupancy rights for a limited period to investors and economic developers from around the globe...

...It is immersing itself in the perfumed capitalist decadence denied it for half a century...

...Deng, declaring that the color of the cat does not matter so long as it can catch mice, began an ideological aboutface and welcomed once-defiled capitalists into the fold...

...Traditional and innovative theater productions, concerts and museum exhibits are mushrooming throughout China...

...Looking back at the Maoist dark age, one is struck by how thoroughly the next generation of Communists forsook his mystical totalitarianism and restructured the country...

...The Soviet Union's sudden disintegration, and the resulting chaos, undoubtedly have made China's leaders extremely cautious...

...Private lessons for English and piano are quite popular...

...The port city of Dalian (formerly Darien), in Manchuria, boasts a district of up-to-date department stores, stylish boutiques, five- and four-star hotels, and sparkling seafood restaurants...

...Subsequent research indicated he was only partially right...

...Those in the hinterland are not, though their lot is far better than it was in commune days...

...Written by Dr...

...It simply decreed—and set up a system to insure—that no couple could have more than one child...

...I returned recently for the first time, as a tourist with an observant eye and vivid remembrances of things past...

...Xintiandi is merely the first phase of a $3.5 billion redevelopment of Shanghai's residential areas...

...The same power was used to relocate 1 million residents in the course of building the Three Gorges Dam...

...Not this time," she said laughingly about her recent visit...

...The exclusive Xintiandi Club, in an elegant refurbished old residence, serves members gourmet Chinese food and trendy Western drinks...

...That indicates a ratio of roughly 50 per cent, and in economically troubled Japan the ratio is only slightly over 10 per cent...

...The erstwhile middle-aged, who were as intensely impacted, now make up the elder generation and appear to consider the period a bad dream...

...It has just been rebuilt as a towering structure...

...In a country where several families used to share a single telephone, there are now over 200 million cell phones...

...This devastated the economy, and in the rural areas the failure of the communes produced a great famine...

...The only incongruous note is a KFC billboard with a smiling Colonel Sanders...

...Late last year the 16th Communist Party Congress received several proposals urging a name change...

...Over this year's long Lunar New Year holiday, an estimated 100 million people traveled...

...They had their own courts, treasuries, police, and armed forces...

...At its center sits Xintiandi, a community of 1920s-vintage town houses known as shikumen for their stone-rimmed and gated entryways...

...Its vices were so notorious and distinctive that the city's name became a verb connoting disreputable activity...

...During the heyday of colonialism parts of the city were ceded to outside powers, who formed two extraterritorial enclaves—the International Settlement and the French Concession...

...Mao quickly unleashed his unique personal form of tyranny on China...

...As a gentle reminder to any overenthusiastic observer, right in the middle of Xintiandi there is a plaque on a shikumen wall marking the site of the First Chinese Communist Party Congress, held eight decades ago...

...Besides native Chinese, the population came to include tens of thousands of Britons, French, Americans, Spaniards, Portuguese, Japanese, Koreans, Parsees and Sikhs from India, White Russians fleeing the Soviet Union, Jews fleeing Europe, and refugees from around the globe, for no passport or visa was required of anyone...

...In my travels over much of coastal and interior China, for instance, I never saw a single Mao suit, or a single Little Red Book that millions used to wave in the streets, or a single ideological slogan spouting the Maoist mantra...

...Once a patchwork of farms and creeks, it is now a contemporary cityscape dominated by the ultramodern 88-story lin Mao Tower...

...At night it is illuminated by modish multilamped streetlights, giving one the momentary illusion of walking on a new version of New York's Fifth Avenue, or in London's Knightsbridge or Mayfair sections...

...Work has already begun there on the grounds for the 2008 Summer Olympics...

...I mentioned this to a monk...

...In many of the urban areas modern skyscrapers dot the landscape...

...Is China doing this again...

...Travel, formerly restricted without what amounted to internal visas, reflects another sense of release...

...The survival secret of this massive culture appears to be its ability to yield initially to invaders—be they armies, ideologies or lifestyles—selectively digest whatever is forced down its throat, and then spit out whatever it dislikes...

...professionals and intellectuals were distrusted and excluded...

...Or take the government's solution to the overpopulation that bedeviled the country's economy for centuries...

...The oldest generation, the most traumatically affected, is disappearing...

...The government has the power to unleash or divert tidal waves of cash and other resources at will...

...Looking at the situation from a different perspective, the country is still swimming in liquidity, considering the $ 1 trillion in bank deposits from domestic savers, not to mention the $450 billion already invested by foreigners...

...Some projects involve experimental techniques, such as the magnetic levitation railway for 266mph trains without wheels, currently under construction in Pudong by a German company...

...I traveled extensively throughout the north and east, visiting old haunts, seeking out long-lost friends, relatives and college classmates...

...For example, hundreds of residents in the Xintiandi area were relocated within two months when the city government used the power of eminent domain—which is unchallengeable in China...

...But its state-owned enterprises with their bloated, archaic bureaucracies cannot compete internationally...

...Thank you...

...The building has an enormous atrium that soars from the 54th floor to the roof, where you find Cloud 9, a music-drenched circular bar...

...Valentin Chu, a longtime NL contributor, is the author of three books, including Ta Ta, Tan Tan (Fight Fight, Talk Talk): The Inside Story of Communist China...

...They seem to realize, though, that Maoism was the product of a failed ideology, and are trying to replace it with a relatively liberal modernization and traditional pragmatism...

...Standing in the Hall of 500 Lu Han, or Buddha's Disciples, I realized it looked new and bright...

...Historians often call China the world's only living ancient civilization...

...He thus began visiting Shanghai, despite its having been studiously ignored by Mao...

...Red Guards," he answered cryptically...

...This was easy for Beijing to emulate, since most landlords in China had already been liquidated or dispossessed...

...China's joining of the World Trade Organization has opened a vast potential market...

...Each of the more than a dozen cities I was in looked and felt like a boomtown...

...Most construction projects were built by the "human sea,' directed by zealous, ignorant Party cadres...

...Hinterland Chinese were both fascinated and frightened by Shanghai, which was made whole again after World War II...

...Large numbers of workers are therefore being laid off because of countrywide industrial restructuring...

...Often called "Paris of the Orient" and "Paradise for Adventurers," Shanghai was also reputed to be the world's most wicked city...

...Communism as we knew it in China is history, and this has been brought about through evolution under the same political party, rather than revolution...

...In 1958 he initiated the Great Leap Forward, a scheme to produce "steel" in jerry-built backyard furnaces across the country...

...The Chinese Communist Party is quite content...

...The last hard-liner, Li Peng, who is widely blamed for the 1989 killing of pro-democracy student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, retired as the head of the National People's Congress in March...

...Today, Shanghai is enjoying a renaissance...

...If it can, and the government can mitigate the problems cited previously, China's economy could continue doing well...

...Right across the Huangpu River, facing Shanghai's famous Bund, is Podung...

...For the past two decades it has been growing annually at 8 to 10 per cent...

...Several are engineers or technologically oriented, andspeak English...

...In the ancient capital of Xian, where the first Emperor was buried, thousands of life-size terra-cotta statues are on display in a vast modern museum mobbed with foreign tourists...

...Further north historic Beijing, where some 60 emperors sat on their thrones, is a greatly modernized capital with many high-rises and 40 new shopping districts...

...This has made it the biggest landlord in the world...

...But that could be deceptive, for China, at least in spots, has just catapulted from the late 19th century into the 21st...

...But a short sketch of China's remarkable journey since 1949, when the mainland came under the rule of the Communist Party led by Mao, explains the woman's question...

...On holidays miles of multicolored lights twinkle along both sides of the river...

...Time-devastated historic ruins have been restored too...

...This construction began slowly in the 1980s, a few years after Mao's death, and the pace quickened considerably in the '90s...

...Other impressive undertakings range from the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest, now in progress, to parks, plazas, world-class museums, and commercial buildings in and around numerous cities in the coastal provinces...

...A KEY TRICK that the Chinese learned from Hong Kong when the British returned it in 1997 was the colonial practice of granting only occupancy rights for a specified period to any party "buying" real estate...

...China, however, is not a normal nation...

...Two blocks of them have been completely renovated, as the vanguard of a 25-block gentrification...

...Indeed, the ideological storms of the past seem unreal today to the majority of Chinese...

...The scene suggests one of those romantic spots in Paris, Copenhagen or Amsterdam, but the faces are almost all Chinese...

...Widespread dissensions within the Communist Party prompted Mao to liquidate several of his Long March comrades...

...Among the thousands who were humiliated or punished as "capitalist readers" was Deng Xiaoping, the future reformer, and quite a few other current government and Party leaders...

...It was the greatest cultural disaster for contemporary China...

...It may extend 775 miles north to Beijing someday...

...My overwhelming impression is that China has become the most prosperous Communist country ever...

...But during the Cultural Revolution (1966-69) hordes of Red Guards, carrying banners bearing the slogan "Smash the Old," did seriously damage places like the nearby Funerary Temple and Tomb of General Yue Fei, a 12th-century patriot, and the elaborate Ming Dynasty tombs (14th to 17th centuries) in Beijing...

...Hong Zhaoguang, a cardiologist and a university professor, they talked about foods rich in phytochemicals, red wine, green tea, and black fungus, as well as the psychological value of ancient Chinese altruism and tolerance...

...Much of the traditional respect for age seems to have returned, too—extending to the restoration of many old and even religious structures...

...Busy highways and expressways span the coastal provinces...

...The rising middle class is lavishing money on rounding out the education of its children...

...They invaded government offices, stores, homes, churches and temples, confiscating and destroying priceless jewelry, objets d'art, Western andancient Chinese books, scrolls and paintings...

...Elsewhere, Disneylands and Universal Studios are sprouting up...

...I came upon a total of two works on Mao in an obscure comer...

...He was the only one from that era who had held on to a token role while the Shanghai clique pushed the country in the direction of modernization...

...One example can be found in Hangzhou, a 13th-century capital known for its poets, painters, courtesans, and mistily picturesque West Lake...

...Everywhere I went I mingled with the locals: in cheap noodle eateries and upscale restaurants, at shoddy curbside stalls, in stylish boutiques and fashionable department stores...

...Now Dr...

...The ideological purges he repeatedly launched were not only directed against landlords and capitalists, but merchants, clerks, writers, actors, academics, government officials, and even members of his own Party...

...The younger generation has little realistic knowledge of Maoist Communism, and frankly could not care less...

...When the Communists took over China, Mao Zedong, who had always disliked the city, deliberately neglected it...

...But if people are enjoying economic prosperity, they eventually demand more political freedom...

...The vast sums involved in reshaping the industrial base have also led to widespread corruption...

...Standing on top of Xian's ancient city wall at its massive South Gate and looking toward the distant Bell Tower, you see an entire boulevard of traditional and modern buildings that blend together well...

...Severance pay and pensions are sometimes curtailed or terminated by local authorities, resulting in hitherto peaceful protests...

...Most of those currently running the country are highly educated...

...Its trade surplus last year reached $50 billion, forcing Singapore to rechart its economic strategy and sending shivers through Japan...

...The current leaders have openly distanced themselves from Western-style democracy...

...Whether one calls it a mutant descendant of Communism, or a love child of socialism and capitalism, it is a new China on the go—toward a continuing evolution...

...Significantly, the current government has repaired all such Red Guard vandalism without fanfare...

...That is the stunning paradox of the prosperity one sees while traveling around the country...

...For any normal nation an insolvent banking system could spell real trouble...

...Several blocks of Shanghai's main street, Nanjing Road, have been turned into a traffic-free pedestrian mall of stores and colorful benches for weary shoppers and gawkers...

...Practically nothing new was being built or refurbished, while people were generally uncommunicative and suspicious...

...The hall was actually burned down accidentally in 1936...

...What interests them are the new technology businesses that generate high income, and all the decadent pleasures flowing back from abroad...

...For a quarter century the country was shaken by what Mao called endless revolution...

...It is also the location of one of the country's greatest Buddhist temple complexes, Lingyin Monastery, dating back to the 4th century...

...Before long it stagnated into a giant, somewhat decrepit conglomeration of villages...

...They were mainly responsible for the economic reform of the past two decades...

...For four years all schools were closed and millions of students were turned, often forcibly, into rampaging Red Guards...

...In Maoist days Liberation confined itself to official news and harsh Communist dogmas, while professors such as the author of the supplements were often being "re-educated": digging soil on remote farms and carrying human feces for fertilizer...

...Large crowds, mostly young plus some middle-aged, flooded the restaurants, stores, recreation facilities, and streets...

...The suggested alternatives were "People's Party" or "Socialist Unity Party...

...Will that embolden those who cling to the remnants of its Communist past...

...when I saw it as a boy, it was eerily dark and somber...

...One reason for the effectiveness and speed of the fundamental changes in China, however, is the government's tight control...

...But they were soon imprisoned...

...Leaving the club, one encounters sidewalk cafes, charming little Western and Chinese bistros, and boutiques in New Orleans-style courtyards...

...Shanghai's renowned City God Temple, a vast 18th-century complex containing a garden, an algae-choked lake with decrepit zigzag bridges, bazaars, shops, and restaurants...

...The rejuvenation of Shanghai and other cities in China is proceeding rapidly...

...They haveahealthy pragmatic approach that inevitably pushes ideological fervor into the background...

...Since the government owns the land and is choreographing all the major economic shows, it denotes socialism...

...A major government mouthpiece, Shanghai's Liberation Daily, contained two very popular weekend supplements not long ago entitled "How to Live to 100 Years...

...A Spanish visitor on Beijing's upscale Wangdafu shopping street, her arms full of packages, asked rhetorically in awe: "Is this a Communist country...

...Although there is no nude dancing on the stage, artistic nude photos are exhibited in various galleries...

...The so-called Cultural Revolution was devised mainly to counter the dissenters...

...He said it had been rebuilt...

...Nevertheless, whether financial disaster can be fended off remains to be seen...