Yes, China is our good friend but not a role model!

By- Adnan Pavel

China is the economic and military super-power. If we take nominal GDP into consideration, it ranks second in the World’s economy but if we take Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) into consideration it outsmarts USA. China is a super-power and Chinese products have reached everywhere in the World but has its influence reached? China wants to have a major palisade and direct economic and geo-political influence on its neighbours and, the relationship among China-India-Bangladesh is rather a complex triangle. Last year Modi announced 2 billion dollar credit line for Bangladesh but Xi’s announcement outweighs even that huge credit line. Xi promised 24 billion dollar for about 25 projects starting from power plant to infrastructure development in Bangladesh. He said and I quote “we want a strategic partnership of co-operation between us and Bangladesh”.

China is always a bosom friend of Bangladesh but can China be our role model? The straightforward answer to that is NO. China is our good friend but not a role model. But why? Surely a developing country like us should follow the footsteps of such an economic success, no? No, we should never follow China. China has a dreadful human rights record, malfunctioning democracy. Not only this, the state doesn’t uphold the labour’s rights, doesn’t uphold freedom of expression and on top it, it is damaging the environment more than any of the industrialised countries.

China has a malfunctioning democracy. One party; CCP is governing the country for last six decades, that’s insane. China is more of a totalitarian state. Do you know how many positions President Xi holds within his party and into the government? 6/7, God knows! Chinese people doesn’t have freedom of expression, freedom of association, assembly and religion. Have you ever heard of a government that punishes its own citizens brutally for calling multi-party election or democracy? Yes, that’s Chinese government. Media is heavily censored, internet is blocked, where is the accountability and transparency? The top political leaders aren’t subject to laws, they get amnesty, how funny!

China is the worst example of human rights. You ask a senior Chinese politician about “Human rights”, they will define it as “foreign infiltration or Western propaganda”. In China, government consents the police to monitor and scrutinise the work of the NGOs. From August 2015 to January 2016, China has detained more than 200 civil rights lawyers or activists. They may even face jail for life for trying to hold government into account. We call it “accountability” but China call it treason or subverting the state power. China detained civil rights lawyers, activists, journalists and even women’s rights activist. We all know about the cruel “one child policy”, don’t we?

China has a population of 1.3 billion, four times bigger than USA. Low wages, lack of basic labour rights made China popular for the entrepreneurs. China is yet to meet the international Labour law standard. The right to strike for better wages, working conditions and hours are very limited. Although there has been a little progress in the past years but it’s not yet 21^st century standard.

But there is another important area that China is doing badly, that’s environment. China is destroying our mother Planet but unfortunately China wants to contradict any such allegation. Air pollution is so bad in China that more than 35,000 Chinese people are dying prematurely. China uses pet-coal as it’s cheap. China has no proper sustainable waste management plan, China is in water crisis too. Food supply is highly threatened due to pollution in China, the excessive growth of Algae is damaging the ecosystem. Have you ever heard of something called “Cancer village”? Well, there are many “Cancer villages” in China. 70% of the World’s E-waste ends up in China but still the country couldn’t care less about a sustainable plan to manage this huge waste. In many parts of the China, people can’t see the sunlight during winter due to smog, scientists call it “nuclear winter”.

Occupants of Beijing can’t see sun-rise on a normal day due to smog but thanks to technology that made it possible for people of Beijing to see the sunrise on a virtual screen. Yes, you are right, I am being sarcastic here.

So, now you tell me, how China can be our role model? China only cares about money, not human, not for a green planet. We can’t be an authoritarian nation with terrible human rights like China. Yes, we need money but not by exploiting our human resources and natural resources.