Chinas New Age

Today´s media is full of news about China. On the one hand Economists get really excited when they talk about this topic as China sustained a GDP growth rate of about 10 % over a period of almost 30 years.

But on the other hand there is a lot of criticism on the political decisions made in China. Western media were reporting furiously on the repressive politics in Tibet, Liu Xiaobo and Ai Weiwei are well known all over the world as a heroes suppressed by a violent regime.

But there is another tendency that has not drawn as much attention as the others have. Despite having the biggest CO2 emissions in the word even before the US since 2007 China is initiating a wide range of impressing projects that point clearly towards a more sustainable and ecological future.

In this article I will explore different ideas to change China, the mobility of its people and their way of life. I want to find out what topics are being debated by the people who are working on that process and what problems are currently faced.

Changing China

Being the most populous country by far (1.3 billion) and the fourth biggest by area China faces great challenges when it comes to mobility. In 2009 China became the largest automobile market in the world:

“This is the first time in history that China has overtaken the United States in monthly sales”

states Mike DiGiovanni, General Motors’ Executive Director of global markets and industry analysis. The one car per capita idea will definitely not work out though as pollution and traffic in Chinas huge cities will become problematical (see my last blog post).

So China has extended its railway system to 91,000 km in 2010 (compared to 21,800 km in 1950). Besides they have invested heavily in more innovative forms of public transportation.

A famous example is the Shanghai Maglev Train that travels from the international airport Pudong to the city center and was opened to the public in 2004. This is a lot faster (431km/h) and smoother traveling than before. This blogger had a ride on it listening to Paul Kalkbrenner a few days ago and made a video with his i-Phone. Have a look what it feels like to be on that high speed train.

Moreover china is paving its way to another form of energy generation. During and after the financial crisis China invested heavily into renewable energy. Then they are building 52 new nuclear power stations, which are bearing the risk of an nuclear catastrophe and produce nuclear fuel rods that cannot be disposed of ecologically but that limit their CO2 emissions.

Projects for the Future

China has developed some other innovative projects they are visioning for solutions and have come up with some ingenious ideas that depict how the new world could look like.

One of these projects is Lingang the biggest planned city in the world near Shanghai. It is currently being constructed around an artificial lake with a 3 kilometer diameter and will be completed expectedly in 2020. The financial district and the city center are planned to be car-free and with a lot of parks and canals the city will be a green metropolis.

Finally I read on this blog about a jaw-dropping idea that really impressed me. The author describes an originative bus system that works with a so called Straddling Bus. This bus allows cars to pass underneath which saves a lot of space that would have been needed for a bus line. Being equipped with solar photovoltaic panels on the top this will be one of the first zero emission vehicles in the world ( it has an electric drive from external sources as well). This convinces me that there are enough smart people out there to have ingenious ideas that will solve big problems that seem unanswerable. It is not enough yet, there have to be more innovations and even some deeper changes in our way of traveling and even living.

As I learned about those impressive developments in China my image of this country, heavily influenced by negative reporting of western media, has changed. There is a long way to go for china to make its way to a sustainable economy but there is already some ideas being realized. It will be thrilling to follow the development and the decisions being made by its government towards the future.