On China's reform

I would like to comment on what I. Wibowo of China Study Center wrote in Kompas of June 11, 2001 about China`s experience of reform and economic liberalization in his article titled The withdrawal of Mubyarto and Dawam Raharjo.

Just a few years back, I. Wibowo wrote in The Jakarta Post that China was a Marxist-Leninist totalitarian state, but now he writes that China has become the country that likes most to copy everything American, especially since the time of the Reagan government. I doubt very much the consistency in his thinking and view and he should know that economic reform and liberalization in China were a domestic political decision.

I. Wibowo also decried the economic liberalization that had been the woe of many workers who were made redundant with a xiagang (small retainer), but he omitted to mention that many of those xiagang recipients had afterwards successfully become their own bosses or entrepreneurs. I. Wibowo also wrote that 80 percent of the Chinese population live in rural areas, but it is generally accepted that China's rural population is only 70 percent.

The Senior Minister of Singapore. Mr. Lee Kuan Yew made the same estimate as reported also in The Straits Times of Singapore on June 14, and it has even been predicted by Mr. Lee Kuan Yew that in another 50 years, the population will probably be 70 percent urban and 30 percent rural.

I. Wibowo further wrote that the abolition of the commune system in China had been the beginning of the destruction of the lives of those farmers, because beforehand, they had been able to live above subsistence level on various allowances and subsidies, but now, since those allowances and subsidies are gone, most of the farmers again live at a subsistence level. It is indeed a joke here to say that most of the farmers have gone back to subsistence level. The World Bank has even estimated that about 250 million to 300 million people living below the poverty line before reform were lifted out of poverty after the economic reforms and liberalization. And it is exactly this improvement of the economic well-being of the farmers that has provided a solid foundation for further, sustainable, gradual economic reform and liberalization in China.

I. Wibowo further wrote that the prevailing free market has caused impoverishment in China. To say that the free market in China has caused impoverishment is not only peculiar, but is also a ridiculous joke that won`t wash. The Gini coefficient quoted and also admitted by I. Wibowo is about the income distribution gap but not impoverishment. He also wrote that Premier Zhu Rongji was once quoted as saying that the Gini coefficient in China had reached 0.49. I wonder from where he has quoted this figure.

The article by Mr. Zhong Wei of Beijing, as reported by Lienhe Zaobao of Singapore on May 11, 2001, quoted Premier Zhu Rongji as saying that the Gini in China was 0.39, approaching the internationally accepted level for concern of 0.4 that calls for attention and a solution, but is not serious.

I would like to say that much of I. Wibowo`s analysis and views on China are flawed, inaccurate and distorted and I would advise him to read more about China so that his further writings lend more credibility to his China Study Center. It would also be instructive for him to remember a few lines from the late Deng Xiaoping that "socialism is not about poverty and poverty is not socialism, and to get rich is glorious".

SIA KA-MOU

Jakarta