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Strategies & Market Trends : China Warehouse- More Than Crockery -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (860)	9/27/2003 2:31:26 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6370

China's obsession with numbers PRINT FRIENDLY EMAIL STORY Correspondents Report - Sunday, 28 September , 2003 Reporter: John Taylor HAMISH ROBERTSON: For many people in China, the number eight has a special significance. In the Cantonese language, the pronunciation of "eight" is similar to the word meaning to make ones' fortune, prompting many to go to extraordinary lengths to have eights on number plates, or in mobile phone numbers. But as John Taylor reports from Beijing, China's obsession with numbers doesn't end there. JOHN TAYLOR: I will always associate numbers with China. One obvious reason is that China is the world's most populous nation, with nearly one billion, three hundred million people. And numbers seem to take an importance here, and play a role that they don't in Australia. They frequently illustrate the absurd, but also impressive, and often astounding aspects of present and past China. For instance, the dead from China's Taiping Rebellion in the 1800s is thought to exceed 20 million. Australian historian Professor Geoffrey Blainey says that's more than the death toll from World War I. Also consider a census conducted in China just after the birth of Christ. Over the course of AD 1 and 2 ?59, 595,000 people were counted. It's remarkable not only for the number of people that were living in China at that time, more than Australia has now, but also because of the ability of officials to conduct such a complicated undertaking over such an expanse of territory so long ago. Today, China has more than that number in the Communist Party. The Party's Organising Department says there are 66,355,000 members. The Communists love to number things. China's Communist history is littered with numbered campaigns and movements ?“the Four Olds,?“the Four Bads,?“the Five Antis,?and "the Four Basic Principles?are just a few. My personal favourite is “The Stinking Ninth?a reference to Mao's “stinking ninth category,?the intellectuals. Numbers can also get people into trouble, as former Red Guard and then electrician, Wei Jingsheng learnt in the late 1970s, he was imprisoned after he advocated a “Fifth Modernisation??democracy. Right now China has its “Three Represents Theory,?dubbed Marxism for Contemporary China, which has recently cleared the ideological ground for businessmen to join the Party. And China also has the "Three Unmentionables" ?political reform, constitutional change and re-assessment of historical incidents. Of particular concern is any re-assessment of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, referred to in China as “June 4? Still on politics, and China of course demands that those countries it has diplomatic relations with support the "One China Policy," that Taiwan with its own democratically elected president is really a part of the mainland. And there's “One country two systems" which allows Hong Kong to be relatively democratic but still formally part of authoritarian China. But no discussion of China's fascination with numbers is complete without mentioning financial figures, as China embraces capitalism like never before. The US trade deficit with China in July was a staggering $16.5 billion. It's an increasing political embarrassment ahead of November 2004 US Presidential elections. Finally, there are just interesting figures, China officially has 24 million disabled people of working age. But are the numbers really all that they seem? China's SARS outbreak showed, if some people needed convincing, that not all numbers are to be trusted. On April the 20th authorities revealed the true number of infections in the capital was more than nine times greater than previously repeatedly stated. This is John Taylor in Beijing, for Correspondents Report. abc.net.au