Latest comments posted about Briefing: consumption and consumerism on ChinaDialogue en-gb http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/189-Briefing-consumption-and-consumerism http://staging.chinadialogue.net/images/cdlogo.gif http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/189-Briefing-consumption-and-consumerism The argument is very interesting. It's a pity for me to see it after such a long time! Kelvin Mok (puzzled that you use such a hard-to-spell foreign name!), I'm staying in developed country as you are and it has been a long time. You said Chinese peopl eare normally very sparing. I totally agree--if by normally you mean traditional virtues. However, a phenomenon I saw so many times after I came back to China challenges your viewpoint. I saw how poor Chinese people spare and how rich Chinese people waste; I saw the old generations do their best to afford the school, work and marriage for their children, and I also see the young generations live in rich houses, own fancy cars, and do not bother to walk for minutes rather than being stuck in awful transportation. Do you know the specific examples of the differences between the rich and the poor? Have you ever read the research reports about the differences? Wed, 26 Sep 2007 17:42:57 -0400 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-4451 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-4451 Kelvin is only partly right about Chinese frugality (although buying cheap doesn’t necessarily mean environmentally friendly.). In nowadays China, vested interest new rich, officials enriched by corruption and the urban youth sometimes consume more extravagantly than their western counterparts—because money comes easy for them. On the other hand, although Japan is also a developed country, the living condition of average Japanese is also crowded, if not more crowded than many of us in China. In Japan, a family of four typically lives in a flat of about 70 square meters (while in China now it is often more than 100M2 for the family of civil servants and white collars etc.), much smaller than you guys in Canada. The reason is simple: rich as Japan, it is still constrained by the affordability of its land and resources, let alone China, a poor country with limited resources, huge population and crowded space too. Fri, 15 Jun 2007 06:12:25 -0400 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-3872 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-3872 Kelvin, your comments frankly are smug and short sighted. You are in Canada. I am in Beijing where I see young, wealthy Chinese obsessed with which model of mobile phone they want to have next. They have a perfectly good working phone but it isn't the latest model, so they want a new one. How is this different from the west? Chinese people live in smaller houses, on average, yes, than they do in China. But according to Chinese government sstatistics, energy consumption in China is much less efficient than in the west or in India. Chinese culture today is consumerist.. people are bombarded with adverts that tell them they will be happy if only they buy certain things.. China is going down a dangerous path. You cn say Chinese people are entitled to live profligate and extravagant lives but it only works if you have a spare planet to live on. Where's your spare planet. Kelvin? If you don't have one, wake up, stop being smug, stop leaving it to the government -- your government's record on the environment is one of the worst in the world. It's time the Chinese people accepted they are all responsible and they should all act. Sat, 21 Apr 2007 17:51:56 -0400 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-3557 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-3557 Ms. Bird, like most western writers, is very superficial with her analysis and prognosis of the societal trends of a people whom she barely knows about. The Chinese, as with all peoples, do want the better things of life made possible by modern technology. What she and all westerners overlook is that the ordinary Chinese is a very frugal person. The point I wish to make is that while we may appear to possess first world goodies, or want to, our habits and our consumption of resources to obtain and to maintain that status is probably a fraction of that consumed by a westerner. I, and many of my Chinese friends in Canada where I am, already have all the good things in life such as a large house, a car, the household appliances and much else. What we can’t get out of our system is the habit of “not wasting” anything. Thus we count the value of every cent, buying only when there is a sale and cutting expenses to the bone. We don’t drive our car to the corner store to pick up a carton of milk. We walk or more likely plan our purchases so that we buy our groceries at one go. We eat every part of the chicken except the feathers and the cluck. Food is never wasted. We don’t waste money on junk food or snotty fine dining either. Lights not needed are switched off. Toilet flushing is minimal (don’t ask) When we drive always at the back of our minds is how much gas we will use up. We take care of our cars so that they last more than 10 years. We seldom throw anything away and will recycle where possible. On account of this an average Chinese home will have a lot of mismatched stuff because much of them is bought at bargain prices. Plus since we never throw away any stuff the items span the architectural styles spanning several decades. Try assembling a matching décor. I could probably write a book on Chinese frugality. Yes China will use up more and more of the world’s resources. But the resources consumed by per Chinese person will be a lot lower than per western person. You can observe this for yourself anytime among your Chinese friends and neighbors. Furthermore the mainland Chinese lives in a home probably one quarter the size of my Canadian one. There is very limited opportunity for conspicuous consumption or for waste. There being so many of us of course the gross totals in consumption and waste produced will eventually be higher than the developed countries. But all the possible energy saving and material saving measures are already in practice in Chinese homes. Granted pollution from inefficient and dated industries is a big problem. Fortunately the Government is aware of this and is actively correcting this is as China moves up the modernization ladder. Kelvin Mok Mon, 06 Nov 2006 12:33:15 -0500 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-425 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-425 [China’s demands can be measured in many ways, in snapshots of its growing consumption as it strives toward a “first-world” lifestyle. With lighting, air conditioning, computers and other office equipment, “China’s nearly seven million public servants reportedly use almost 5% of the country’s annual electricity, which is enough to meet the demands of 780 million farmers,” the newspaper China Daily reports.] Mon, 06 Nov 2006 11:39:55 -0500 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-424 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-424 Developed countries certainly have a responsibility and a duty, in moral terms, to reduce their global footprint. At the same time, developing nations such as China need to ensure that, in growing as they will, they do not repeat the worst mistakes of the developed nations. For example, the technology exists today to produce clean energy and clean-running vehicles. (In fact, it has existed for quite a while.) What’s lacking is the political will to change things. The governments and populations of all countries -- large or small, developed or developing -- need to mandate action for truly sustainable living. They need to address global warming and its ramifications as a planetary emergency and devise ways to manage our precious resources efficiently. Carbon dioxide reduction anywhere in the world is good for the earth. Numerous times throughout China’s history, the country has moved in daring leaps. China has an opportunity now to leap ahead again, especially in the energy sector. Unlike the US, many experts say, China is not overly invested in oil and can more easily move into new fuels. In both urban and rural areas, investment in solar power and other clean, renewable sources can make a significant difference in reducing the degradation of air, water and land. Such progress would be a boon to human health, and a win-win situation all around. No one can seriously argue that China and other nations should not develop. They have the same right (and need) to do so as the so-called first world countries. But what they also have is an opportunity to do it better. – Maryann Bird Wed, 30 Aug 2006 19:31:13 -0400 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-208 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-208 just a follow up to the "some rants" post here. what china should do is look at and implement new technologies that are being developed that use alternative sources of fuel. for instance, those new buses that run on fuel cells which are being tested out on beijing's street are a nice move in the right direction. as well as bio-disel, methane, wind and solar and other forms of renewable fuel sources are cruicial to meeting china's energy demands. i'm skeptical on hydro-electricity because of the environmental changes associated with damming up large bodies of water; however, it doesn't mean cheap sources of electricity that are non-polluting shouldn't be given serious consideration. by skipping traditional fossil fuels for new cars and power generating plants for industry, china can lead the world in terms of advancing technology and development of self-sustaining energy sources. without the oil industry monopolies' influence on the american and european governments that stifles innovation and ecological protection (as well as wars like iraq), china can lead the world both in terms of it's current trajectory of industrial production and as well as environmental protection. and western medias that "report" on china can give credit where it's due that china is attempting to utilize these new technologies in some ways that far outpaces what their own countries have been trying to implement. Fri, 04 Aug 2006 04:01:07 -0400 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-184 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-184 face it, most of these "critiques" from european and north american publications are based on thinly veiled xenophobia and ethnocentricism at best. it's no secret that most of the white nations of the world (G8) can't stand to see the brown and yellow people progressing above them in terms of economics and military strength. so the environment becomes an easy target when industrializing nations like china is rapidly surpassing those developed nations in terms of having money and large standing armies. given the current track record of the united states and its allies in the environment, they ought to be the last ones to criticize when most of the oil, timber, metal and other raw materials are outsourced overseas to developing nations like china and china's environment is destroyed because china is manufacturing finished products for american and european consumption. it's ironic and even hypocritical that western nations are criticizing china's environmental degradation from it's industries when those western nations are the direct beneficiaries of china's manufacturing and environmental degradation. what they can't stand is that china's also getting rich thru the process and they can't do anything about it. while there's no denying that china and the rest of the world face grave environmental consequences (and already have in many ways), and that serious studies and attempts at self-sustaining methods of economic production must be looked at and implemented, there's little credibility to many of the environmental rants that western nations impose upon china when they themselves have made little attempts at changing their lifestyles. in many ways, it's like those chinese government workers that didn't follow thru on the energy conservation effort a few weeks ago: their "let somebody else do it" indifference and execuse reflects perfectly the western nations' sense of self-entitlement and self-contradictions of environmental action. so as long the west demands cheap manufactured goods from retailers like wal-mart without any regards to the environmental costs associated with the manufacturing of those goods, china will "sacrifice" its environment in the mad rush to get rich on its own terms. the only solution is self-sustainable development and all nations should look into cooperative efforts that would make them do so. Fri, 04 Aug 2006 03:52:13 -0400 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-183 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-183 This is a situation that often occurs when discussing the environment or consumption in developing countries. When faced with the reality of increased pollution, people will often use the excuse that the Western countries did it first. That accusation is meaningless because it doesn't matter who did it first: everyone is equally responsible for the destruction they, and their habits, wreck on the environment. Of course the United State's dependence on oil is reckless, but so is China's. Of course there has been terrible air pollution in England during the nineteen hundreds from its own period of rapid industrialization. But that doesn't mean we can turn a blind eye to the pollution that is going on today. Jared Diamond is very clear in what he says: the wasteful ways of mass consumption and culture of consuming prevalent in most of the Western world is not something we should aspire to. Everyone needs to do soul searching - not only the first world. Blaming others for their role in the degradation leads us no where. Instead, why not focus our energy on what WE can do. -Jiayi. Tue, 01 Aug 2006 02:02:14 -0400 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-179 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-179 Jared Diamond writes in "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive" that "China will, of course, not tolerate being told not to aspire to first world levels. But the world cannot sustain China and other third-world countries and current first-world countries all operating at first-world levels." This statement is ridiculous, it's a clear case of double-standards. Should third-world countries suffer poverty? I think first-world countries need to do some soul-searching first! What about the pollution and consumption of resources they are responsible for in the third world? But hostile accusations and fear will not help the situation. Although first-world countries have already profited at others' expense, well-meaning offers of help and guidance can aid third-world countries in reducing the ecological footprint of their development. Wed, 19 Jul 2006 10:15:05 -0400 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-164 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/189#comment-164