A wave of materialism and consumerism is sweeping away communist notions of morality from the country's past, writes James Kynge Published: January 2 2001 19:41GMT | Last Updated: January 2 2001 23:28GMT The melancholy that dwells in Liu Jingwen's eyes, his unkempt hair and furrowed brow describe the strain of being a true communist in today's Communist China. Some 20 years ago, his acts of selfless devotion to others could have made him a propaganda icon like Lei Feng, the People's Liberation Army soldier who in the 1960s spent his days engaged in good deeds and his evenings darning comrades' socks. But Mr Liu, who lives in a dilapidated house near Beijing's Summer Palace, is neither famous nor revered. His neighbours think he is mad and even his two sons treat him with cold indifference. His folly has been to uphold Chairman Mao's exhortation to "struggle against the sense of self". In the 1980s he donated Rmb20,000 ($2,400) to a flood relief effort and since the early 1990s he has helped fund 60 poor, rural students through university, paying about Rmb30,000 each year. Once he built a bus shelter with his own money, so moved was he by the plight of commuters who had to stand in the rain and snow. Yet society has failed to return his kindness. The two small restaurants he owned have been demolished by the authorities, with no compensation. Not one of the students he assisted has offered to repay his generosity and most do not bother even to keep in touch. "My relatives and neighbours just swear at me," he says as he sits beside the torn and patched quilt that he and his wife use for bedding. "They say that I am even more crazy than Lei Feng." >From one perspective, Mr Liu's story is that of one man's failure to move with the times. From another, it is a commentary on a society so swept by materialism that money now measures the value of almost everything. The icons of today's China form a mirror image of 20 years ago. Mobile phones from Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola and designer fashions from Gucci, Prada and Christian Dior are accessories to a creed of consumerism that disdains all notions of frugality and egalitarianism. Private entrepreneurs, including those from abroad such as Bill Gates, now eclipse government bureaucrats as objects of popular admiration and socialist-era "model workers" are more likely to elicit satire than respect. Heading a list of 50 wealthy entrepreneurs, according to Forbes magazine, is Ren Zhengfei, 56, a former PLA officer, who runs Huawei, a telecommunications equipment manufacturer sometimes called the Cisco Systems of China. His net worth is estimated at $500m. But he may since have been displaced by Liu Yonghao, a former chicken farmer who runs a listed feed grain company and is the biggest shareholder in China's first private bank, Minsheng, which listed last week. Even people officially classed as villains, such as Lai Changxin, the man allegedly at the centre of a smuggling ring worth several billion dollars in the south-eastern port of Xiamen, continue to command popular admiration. "He was a poor peasant, just a sparrow to start with, but he ended up like a peacock and that was all down to his wits and courage," He Xin, a resident of Beijing, says of Mr Lai, who is currently awaiting an extradition decision from Canadian courts. "What was wrong with the way he behaved?" asks Mr He. "Everyone is corrupt these days anyway." Mr Lai's lifestyle has become the stuff of legend. Like many among China's new rich, he was known in Xiamen for his largesse. He would routinely dole out Rmb100 for a Rmb5 cab ride, local people said. He was known for spending tens of thousands of renminbi in a single evening, wining and dining contacts and lavishly tipping bar girls known throughout China as the "three accompaniments" for the services of drink, song and sex that they provide. Mr Lai bought Xiamen's soccer team, built a 30-storey hotel and had a replica of Beijing's sprawling Forbidden City made as a potential tourist attraction. In 1996 Mr Lai invited 2,000 guests, including government contacts from Beijing, to a ground-breaking ceremony for a planned 88-storey complex - the Yuan Hua International Centre - and each guest was said to have received money and gifts worth Rmb3,000. Mr Lai's guilt or innocence has yet to be determined. But it would speak volumes about the power of money in today's China if, as claimed, he were able to manipulate a smuggling ring involving scores of local officials for several years before the authorities closed in on him. Money is at the centre of a value system now emerging from the ruins of the old Communist welfare state. The once-powerful "work units", which would determine - and subsidise - the healthcare, education, housing, pension and holidays of their members, have had to surrender their influence to economic reality. Most state companies can no longer afford the welfare with which they bought the loyalty of their workers. Schools, universities, hospitals and a host of public utilities are increasingly awarding places and services to those who can pay for them, rather than those able to pull strings within the Communist hierarchy. For many millions of people such as Li Mingzhi, the daughter of a peasant farmer in the southern province of Hunan, this trend has had a liberating effect. No longer bound by the straitjacket of Communist control, she was able to migrate to Beijing seven years ago and find work as a housemaid. She married a factory worker and they had a son. This year, they pooled their savings along with money borrowed from relatives and were able to afford the Rmb50,000 entrance fee for an elite primary school in the capital. If their son, Ming Ming, a cheerful lad with gap teeth, does well at his studies and progresses to a good university, the opportunities that await him will be a world away from anything available to his Hunanese ancestors. Already the opulence of the new urban rich would amaze many among some 900m people living much as Chinese have for centuries in the vast hinterland. The average wage in China is $800 a year but most people in the countryside exist on far less than that, including about 90m who live on less than one dollar a day. At the Chang An Club in Beijing, which serves a membership that is dominated by wealthy businessmen and private entrepreneurs, clients smoke Havana cigars and sip from bottles of Hennessey XO brandy costing up to Rmb8,000 each. Behind antique Chinese screens, conversations at the club revolve around money: the latest stock prices on the Shanghai stock exchange, the cost of luxury cars and merits of paying Rmb10m for a new villa in a Beijing suburb. The suburb they are discussing is not far from the Summer Palace where the philanthropic Mr Liu inhabits his ramshackle house. _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
