Making America Envy Us Is Not Our Greatest Need

Chinese Peoples’ Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) member Zheng Xinli, deputy director of the Economic Committee of the CPPCC, had a small discussion with reporters recently and said: “China will form the world’s most unique and unrivaled high-speed rail network. It will be the only thing of China’s that will surpass that of developed nations. The Americans and Japanese will be very jealous and envious of us” (March 6, “Beijing News”).

We have been trying to catch up with developed countries, but surpassing developed nations is not the goal. The goal is to accelerate economic development in order to meet the needs of the people. Then, when we develop our own high-speed rail, whether or not the Americans and Japanese will be truly jealous honestly does not require any contemplation.

Ordinarily, China’s plan to have a high-speed railway that will surpass even developed countries’ railways should be worthy of our pride. Now, to use the words of a Ministry of Railways spokesperson from several years ago: “This is a symbol that China’s railway stands on a technologically dominating point over the world’s railway systems. We feel more that the railway is about more than just speed, but also strength, and this country’s perseverance.” However, the purpose of economic development and railway construction should not be about one’s feeling of pride; rather, the first consideration must be to satisfy the vast majority of tourists and their travel needs. If on one hand, the goal of our high-speed rail is to reach the highest class of rails in the world, and “the Americans and Japanese are very jealous,” but on the other hand, train tickets are still hard to find, travelers are unable to obtain a ticket or seat, and train cars are unbearably stuffed with passengers… In these situations, can other people really be jealous or envious?

Of course we want high-speed rail development and to “take the lead in the world’s highest level of speed rails,” and it is something that we can be proud of; however, facing the issue of tickets becoming harder to come by year after year, traffic problems and peoples’ complaints, the authorities always have, by means of promising to “become the world’s highest level rail,” covered up and evaded the peoples’ struggles and complaints.

Now, we once again hear this argument: “The Americans and Japanese will be very jealous and envious.” Whether the Japanese and Americans envy us, we the common people do not know, nor are we interested enough to find out. And we have not heard that trains in the U.S. and Japan have this “hard to find” ticket problem. Even if we make the U.S. and Japan jealous and envious of our high-speed rail, for us ordinary people, what is the use? People will not say: By making people jealous, can we overcome these difficulties? Some people can Ah Q (referring to a literary novel by Lu Xun), the peoples’ need is genuine.