Experts agree that the Middle Kingdom’s economic growth will make it rise to a major power. Already， the struggle for resources has become harder. “We can compete only by quality on the global market.” said Horst Santjer. Here， Germany is still ahead. “I have bought safety pins that bend even when piercing the fabric.” says Martha Santjer. On his bike the seat post bent and pedals dropped off， her husband added： “This way the craftsmen get their work， due to the frequent repairs.”
The full German-language article can be found here：
http：//www.shz.de/nachrichten/lokales/stormarner-tageblatt/artikeldetails/article// der-lange-weg-zur-demokratie.html
I replied to the article with a Letter to the Editor， which was unfortunately not published， not even in excerpts. I will get to that here：
Letter to the Editor， concerning “The long road to democracy” (23 September 2010)， Stormarner Tageblatt
Ladies and Gentlemen，
having lived and worked for over five years in China (and going on)， I read your article with interest. Unfortunately I cannot participate in the forthcoming lecture， as I will be that time in China. I would have liked to participate in discussions there， because I think that at least what was discussed in the article is not quite fair to China and the Chinese people.
Every day I meet rather normal and average Chinese， having found many friends there (mostly in sports) and got acquaintances. Within those more than 5 years I have learnt a lot about life in China and thus especially have become more cautious in my judgements.
Surely we can have an engaged discussion about how and to what extent the common practice in China is not what we call freedom and democracy in Germany. But are we really in the position to make proposals which are adequate to their situation， on how the Chinese should organise and govern their country and their society better？
Information and debate is available in China in a much wider scale and more freely than pretended by Western media. The official newspapers and news are only a (surprisingly small) section of the Chinese media reality. In addition， in blogs and all sorts of news and social networking web sites (KaiXin， virtually the Facebook of China) there are free， open and critical discussions kept in a manner which we do not know about here (in Germany).
It is certainly true that the “big politics” are receiving less criticism (for Chinese are consistently too loyal to their country to do so， and the “big politics” are of much less interest to the Chinese as they are to us). Yes， there are many plans for road and building construction executed without asking any of the citizens – but is that different from Germany？ I know plenty of examples for how citizens’ initiatives forced major road constructions to be diverted， in one case such that a mangrove forest in ShenZhen (southern China) could be preserved and turned into a National Park. Originally， the highway was intended to be led straight along the coast， which would have meant doomsday for the mangroves.
Matters such as illuminated by the examples of the safety pin and the bent seat post I interpret rather differently. It is simply and effectively not the rule that poor quality was produced. You can buy goods of poor quality， no doubt， but that we can also do in Germany if we are reluctant to pay a fair price. If you want to spend in China only the equivalent of 10 ？ for a bicycle， you cannot expect any quality. I have been driving for 5 years now a very high quality bicycle which never has bent anywhere， taking it to ride altogether at least 60 km per weekend (to the sports pitch and back)， and I paid only 150 ？ for it.
A country which is already featuring a railway network of over 7，000 km of high speed trains (average speed being more than 200 km/h， not top speed， the fastest trains achieve currently up to 380 km/h)， within two years they will have 13，000 km， i. e. more than the entire rest of the world added up – such a country has no problems in making strong enough safety pins and seat posts. You have to buy only the right quality.
All too often， and also in your article， I observe that Germans put towards China a kind of pitying smile， meaning that “they are not yet as advanced as we are” (and do relieve themselves still in the middle of the road). We are deceiving ourselves！ China and the Chinese are much farther and faster and more flexible and more modern than we would have liked them to be.
Too bad that I cannot attend the discussion meeting.
Sincerely， Dr. Bernhard Wessling
A few months after this local media event， a far more important message was released by the international media： China now has the most powerful supercomputer in the world (“TianHe-1A”， 天河， Milky Way 1A)； moreover， among the list of the 500 largest supercomputers in the world， China is represented 41 times， twice among the top 10， with TianHe being first； the United States got 275 computers on the list， France， Japan and Germany each rank with 26， Russia with 11. This achievement is particularly remarkable since until the early 90s of the last century China had to import any computers， and all major computers could be used only with foreign assistance.
Just weeks later， China announced a new world record： the train， mark CHR380A， that will soon connect BeiJing with ShangHai， has achieved the speed of 486.1 km/ h， holding thus the world record for not specifically modified high-speed trains. The previous record was held by a train of the same design， serving the rail ShangHai -HangZhou (which I have taken several times already)： 416.6 km/h.
I really have no doubt that you can buy in China proper safety pins (although I have not checked)， and that you can get high-quality bikes， I know from personal experience.
“Privacy”
“There is no privacy in China， there is not even a word for it.”