Bleeding Edge

Concerns about the quality of the air, about environmental diseases, runaway cancers, toxic food, and lack of clean air & clean water — has risen sharply over the past seven years, according to a new Chinese survey amongst the ordinary people.

Less than 12% of the people had cited environmental pollution as the very biggest problem in 2008. Compare this with 72% today.

In the intervening years China has seen a range of environmental disasters, and water & food safety scares, in recent years, ranging from the use of melamine in the milk supply, to engine motor oil used for cooking, to long expired meat, rotten fish stocks, virally infected poultry, sick pigs, dirty water, polluted air, as well as the horrific tainted milk scandal in 2008 that left six thousand babies dead, and more than 300,000 children sick, with renal failure, kidney failure, and associated diseases, and worse.

When it comes to respondents’ views of whether the problems cited will improve in the future, the answer varies widely depending on the issue. As Chinese President Xi and the Communist party’s much-touted anti-corruption campaign continues to make headlines, 63% of the people surveyed, said they expect official corruption to get better in the next five years, but they see the anti-corruption campaign as another way for Nationalist Cold Warrior Mr Xi going after the dissidents and other unwanted Chinese enemies of the Communist party, instead of going against the truly corrupt party officials.

Still most people have a far grimmer view of pollution, because a little more than one-third of responders, said they think China’s air and water pollution will not improve in the next five years, while more than 43% think the food safety situation will get even worse.

Still 72% of those people polled said their personal economic situation has improved. This is up from 66% in 2008. And 76% said their standard of living is better than their parents’ at the same age. Keep in mind that this poll was taken before China’s economic meltdown in the last few months that rocks the World’s markets today.

Yet the Chinese public outlook on China’s economic future remains a mystery, since respondents were not asked their thoughts on whether China’s economy is headed to a fall in the years to come.

Or maybe this was one of the questions that the government pollsters didn’t like the answers they got, and thus haven’t released them. It’s really up to You to discern what’s going on here.

But the fact that the Chinese people are running pell-mell for the exits with their bags full of Reminbi to invest in other countries and find a safe harbor — gives us a good indication of where they stand on their belief about the long term future of the Chinese economy.

Read the tea leaves…

That’s the best way to find the TRUTH about China, because that’s the only way available to the outsiders.

And have a cup of tea with the Chinese Investors as we do every moth at the Churchill Society in our frequent meetings in Seattle and beyond.

http://www.churchillsociety.net
http://www.meetup.com/churchillsociety

Yours,
Dr Churchill

PS:

China’s stalling economic growth is causing jitters across the globe – but for the Chinese public, environmental pollution is the country’s most worrisome issues.

So say the results of the Chinese study released Thursday by the Washington-based Pew Research Center that subcontracted the study and the poll to a Chinese government owned survey firm in Beijing.

The survey, which is based on 3,649 face-to-face interviews with adults aged 18 and up, was conducted from April 15 to May 27, 2015, before the summer’s stock market mayhem. It came as Chinese President Xi Jinping was in the midst of his first state visit to the U.S. since becoming China’s leader, and the positivity of his international appeal was fully evident throughout China. If this poll was taken today — things would be significantly different…

Also according to this survey, 84% of respondents view official corruption as a big problem – with 44% calling it a very big problem. Air pollution – a persistent problem in China’s cities – cited by 96% of the people as a big problem, while 95% said the same of water pollution, and 93% said this about toxic food.

The country’s yawning wealth gap was cited as a big problem too by 95% of the people as well.