Ten Months until the Beijing Olympics… a few thoughts on China

My first trip to Beijing was five years ago… I’ve been sampling the place about every 6-8 months since and it still startles me each trip. 30,000+ additional cars on the road each month in Beijing… the roads are so much better and the traffic is so much worse… but Beijing is almost ready for what many call its “Coming Out Party”…

They are doing massive renovations to the transportation system and to beautify Beijing… flowers are everywhere and each new overpass adds function and a bit of green beauty… the rows of trees are maturing and in general you see Chinese trade success in the clothing styles, the billboards, the restaurants and even in public transport with all the new buses and the subway extensions and of course the buildings… the cranes. The newspapers report that residential building growth is slowing… and if you look closely you see a fair amount of vacant office space in those huge new buildings.

What amazes me even more though are the new subdivisions… the new burbs that extend out toward the 5th Ring and beyond, cities of new high rise buildings and several new walled communities. Four years ago I visited my first walled/gated community near the Beijing airport… I thought the 3-5,000 sq. ft. houses for ex-pats and well off locals were pretty interesting… then I visited a newer gated community last week. Our friends’ house… 10,000 sq. ft., an indoor pool and pump driven river in the backyard… the architecture, a fusion of Western and Eastern… this would not have existed 10 years ago… five-hundred houses in this one community for the new entrepreneurs of China… forces in this new market-driven party-guided economy… making people wealthy who could not have been wealthy in the past… new challenges, new faces, the same black Mercedes and Audis you see in Europe… and NYC… the world culture.

The CPC was meeting at the same time… private property rights are being extended and basic health care plans for lower income groups are being tested…

Last week I also went to Tiananmen Square (Simplified Chinese: 天安门广场; Traditional Chinese: 天安門廣場) at night for the first time… it was my 4th trip to the place but again, the first at night… very different place… very few Europeans at night and a whole different feel.

What a contrast… Tiananmen Square with it’s huge picture of Mao and the walled/gated communities five rings out… what would Mao have thought of the traffic, the Audis and the Olympic fever that grips China? Let’s hope that the growth is sustainable… it seems such a balancing act.