Let's Hail 2002, But with a Sober Mind: Year-end Commentary

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, January 02, 2003

Let's Hail 2002, But with a Sober Mind: Year-end Commentary

The outgoing 2002 is really indeed a year of excitement and expectation for Chinese. But ahead of China is by no means an expressway.

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The outgoing 2002 is really indeed a year of excitement and expectation for Chinese.

In this year, China's economy performs, as China observers at home and abroad put it, "unexpectedly well".

The gross domestic product (GDP) of China will once again since 2000 record a glittering 8 percent growth, surpassing the threshold level of 10.2 trillion yuan (US$1.23 trillion), according to the National Bureau of Statistics. With this, China will surely secure a much more solid basis for bolder opening-up and reforming strivings.

Right after a successful bidding for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games last year, Shanghai, the business hub in east China, wins the chance to host the 2010 World Exposition, another opportunity to embrace the World and let more know China better.

The most palpitating moment comes with the piercing elevation of Chinese unmanned space capsule "Shenzhou IV" on Sunday: From now on, the track of human beings' exploration into the space and the experiential universe will leave behind a clear line of footsteps by Chinese.

Etched into history is the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held in Beijing on November 8 to 14.

Substantially, the meeting brings Chinese people two things: an ideological guideline and a target.

By choosing the "Three Represents"("Three Represents" means the Party must represent the most advanced production forces; the foremost culture; and the interests of the broad masses) as the central theory of the Party, the CPC has actually been reborn.

Through such a definition, the Party has outgrown the narrow partisan interests of workers and farmers, traditionally two cornerstone classes of the Party, and evolved into a political organization uniting the whole nation for a practical economic and political development.

The Party finally has found a right point between the ideological ideal and the reality.

As for the all-around "Xiaokang" society, a moderately well-off life in most Chinese people's mind, it is a promise with a connotation of not only the per capita US$3,000 GDP by 2020, but also the enriched spiritual enjoyment, the fully-realized social equality and justice, and the guaranteed political democracy with Chinese characteristics.

All the above and the others are completely worth a whole-hearted ovation.

But ahead of China is by no means an expressway.

Despite so much effort, the banking reform in China did not make a real breakthrough yet. Without figuring out a satisfactory solution for the 1.4 trillion yuan (US$169.27 billion) non-performing assets piled up in the State-owned commercial banks in 1999, there have appeared another 1.7 trillion yuan (US$205.56 billion) bad loans by now.

On the one hand, Chinese are on the whole getting richer. On the other hand, however, the disparity between the haves and have-nots is enlarging.

The workers and farmers, two social strata once with the insignia of pride and dignity before China's opening-up and reform in 1978, are finding themselves marginalized with the increasing number of laid-offs out of State-owned enterprises and of the immigrating rural laborers eking out their hard life in the shabby workshops in cities.

In this sense, what in desperate need in China now is a reliable social security network. But the huge amount of money for such a net has made it nearly impossible to mend up the holes in the net in the immediate future.

With a better-off material life, Chinese are now yearning for some perpetual social or moral values supporting their pursuit of individual option and liberty. But where are these values?

For 2002, we hail; for 2003, we expect.

By PD Online Staff Forest Lee

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