On mission in Beijing

Late September I attended two seminars in Beijing, China as part of a delegation of the MoniQA Network of Excellence on Monitoring and Quality Assurance in the Food Supply Chain. The first meeting was a small gathering with experts from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) on research collaboration between China and Europe and thematic priority areas. The second was a training seminar for food scientists working in the mycotoxin area of risk assessment. This provided me with the opportunity to present the joint work of the ICCR and TUBITAK (Turkey) on the regulatory impact assessment of food standards regarding aflatoxins in hazelnuts. (This will be the subject of a forthcoming publication).

The mission was additionally an occasion to get a first impression of Beijing – in between the two seminars and two long-distance flights of nine hours each.

Beijing, the capital of the 2008 Olympics, is a gigantic city: officially it has 20 million residents, but unofficial estimates run up much higher. It is a megacity with avenues comprising 8-lane highways and skyscrapers intermingled with community buildings almost everywhere. There is a lot of green, but hardly any spaces for gathering and most parks are of very small size. The urban design of Beijing negates public space and the public sphere. This reflects the political system but perhaps above all the rapid growth of the economy and the population. As a result Beijing suffers from chronic congestions and environmental pollution.

It is a shame really – also considering that the city has the best metro (subway) system I have come across anywhere (and that includes Vienna!). I avoided using it the first day anxious that I might get lost, given that very few people speak English. Finally, upon leaving the Tiananmen Square and exasperated by the heat and the congestion, I decided to take the risk. I found myself in an extremely modern subway (almost as modern as the impressive airport) which was both clean and air-conditioned and where there were even English signposts – in all stations and in all trains. The services were punctual and the trains fast. Ticket price: 2 Yuan for the full ride (as compared to 40 Yuan with the taxi). (Both are extremely cheap for Western standards: 10 Yuan are around 1 Euro).

Chinese people living in Beijing are hardworking, very polite, curious – and ‘Mediterranean’ in character. But inequality is growing and it is obvious that for most it is a struggle to make ends meet. A job does not suffice; and one must rely on barter and family. It is a situation reminiscent of Eastern Europe in the 1980s – but out of proportion because of the size of the country. (My instinctive first impression of Beijing is that it is equivalent to Istanbul, Athens and Tel-Aviv put together so as to accentuate the negative traits of each and inflated in all directions). Admittedly, life seems to be getting better for those with education and in professional jobs – but slowly. There is little time and space for complaints or even thinking about reforms. But these are overdue, even if politics are to be ‘left aside’. A city like Beijing threatens to become unsustainable, unless major investments are made in social infrastructure and, especially, social housing, the road transport system, education, health as well as urban development. It is a historical irony in view of the country’s communist traditions that one of the biggest social problems faced in today’s China is that young children are at risk of death by accident because of being locked at home by their parents who must go to work but who have no access to either public child care facilities or family networks.

By far the biggest problem facing Beijing, and modern China more generally, is its sheer size. Sustainable growth will only be possible in the framework of a new political organization that emphasizes decentralization and greater regional autonomy towards social reforms. Unfortunately this is also the biggest taboo for the actual regime.

123►