Liu，Manjin：High GDP doesn’t mean prosperity of a country or the well-being of its people
柳鳗津（Liu，Manjin）
In 2011, China’s GDP ranked the 2nd in the world, only after the U.S. The Chinese government has been crazy about the GDP ranking. They propose a goal of GDP increase rate at the beginning of the year and would always accomplish that goal. But, what does it do?
The GDP increase in China is stimulated by investments. The investments of real estate, roads, railroads, etc accounted for more than half of the total GDP. Therefore, many things that are hard to understand have happened in China: the price level is far higher than the income level. For example, housing, the most important livelihood issue, has become the biggest headache. A college graduate with an average income would never be able to afford to buy an apartment in cities such as Shanghai or Beijing, where the housing price has surpassed that in NYC. There is a high disparity of the distribution of social resources. Less than 20% of the population possesses 80% social wealth.
The system in China determines that all levels of government and government officials try every method to increase GDP for their political achievements. As long as the GDP grows, the local government would be achieving their goals and its officials would have a bright future politically. Therefore, roads are built and rebuilt multiple times. GDP did increase. However, investments like this would be wasting resources, and couldn’t increase the welfare or living standard of its people. Data such as GDP could not make a China a developed country.
We hope that the Chinese government could be a people-oriented government and could actually improve people’s living standard. Otherwise, if the GDP per capita ranked the 94th and the people are struggling while the country is prospering, even if the total GDP ranks the 1st place, it would be meaningless.
Liu，Manjin
10/26/2011
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