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Shanghai critique miss the point
http://www.sina.com.cn 2003/09/05 14:33  上海英文星报

  Shanghai has always been a favoured target for verbal attacks by outsiders.

  Northerners find intolerable the manners, the smugness, the penny-wise-pound-foolishness and the single-minded go-getting passion of the Shanghainese.

  Even neighbouring Hangzhou residents are said to dislike Shanghainese for being purse proud, boisterous and exclusive.

  It seems this ill feeling is not restricted to the Chinese mainland.

  Recently a Hong Kong-based newspaper has observed that: "Through sheer chutzpah and public relations guile, Shanghai's super-smooth politicians somehow dissuade foreign investments, leaders and even journalists from looking too closely at their fair city's facade... Shanghai is arguably a Potemkin village on a massive scale."

  Well, the Shanghainese are known for their business acumen and their obsession with image but the quoted charge still appears misplaced.

  Visiting leaders may be too busy to investigate, but the failure of journalists to "see through the facade" is something for which they have only themselves to blame. Getting at the truth is a journalist's chosen mission and can never be easy.

  As for the investors, I believe the dominating factors for investment hinge more on labour costs, land prices, and infrastructure than on a fair image. Remember, we live in an age of advertisements and self-glorification.

  As a matter of fact, soaring business costs in Shanghai are making neighbouring areas outside Shanghai (such as Kunshan in Jiangsu Province) a more favoured destination for investment. There is even on-going discussion on building a "dam" around Shanghai to stem this exodus of investment.

  The Hong Kong newspaper's attack on Shanghai's recent power shortages is equally misleading.

  The unprecedented heatwave this year forced the municipal government to take measures to curb industrial power use to ensure the normal functioning of residents' daily lives.

  Broadly speaking, this was a result of rapid industrial expansion in the Yangtze Delta region and will continue to worsen if economic growth is to continue.

  The controlled power cuts were in sharp contrast to the accidental power outages in the US, Canada and UK where normal daily life was thrown into total chaos.

  The interpretation of the city's controlled power cuts by the newspaper as representing apocalyptic cracks in Shanghai's foundations was a gross exaggeration.

  If we really need to blame something, then it is modern life's heavy reliance on electricity and its resulting vulnerability.

  But Shanghai has its problems.

  The paper's accusation that Shanghai is a "Potemkin village on a massive scale" is where it hurts.

  When the author makes this point he probably had in mind the glitzy but inhospitable Lujiazui financial zone.

  As a matter of fact, Shanghai is going further. Shanghai has already decided to revamp nine suburban towns modelled on German, Dutch, British, North American and other styles.

  Whatever their professed motives, the move is an ill-advised in that it exudes pretension and lends force to the charge that Shanghai has a snobbish faith in anything Western.

  This is particularly deplorable because Chinese architecture, as an essential part of Chinese civilization, is the very reason why so many tourists flock to China.




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