From: achen <achen@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Subject: progress
Content-Type: text
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 22:11:03 GMT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL0]
Content-Length: 3423      

In article <1992Nov5.112431.90512@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au> mte152s@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au writes:
>	ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF CHINA      latest available figures
>
>Source: Country profiles, 1992-1993, China and North Korea
>	The Economic Intelligence Unit
> 
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Macroeconomic indicators		1987	1988	1989	1990	1991
>                                                       ^^^^
>GNP at current market prices Rmb bn	1,130.1	1,401.8 1,591.6 1,768.6 1,960.0
>Real GNP growth			11.0%	10.8%	3.9%	5.0%	7.0%
                                                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Consumer Price Inflation		7.3%	18.5%	17.8%	2.1%	3.4%
                                                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
>Population mn				1,080	1,096	1,126	1,143	1,158
>Merchandise exports fob $bn		39.4	47.5	52.5	61.3	71.9
>Merchandise imports cif $bn		43.2	55.2	59.1	52.6	63.8
>Current account	$bn		0.3	-3.8	-4.3	12.0	10.3
>                                                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Total Debt (incl undisbursed)$bn	35.3	42.4	45.9	52.6	55.1
>Reserves excl gold $bn (year end)	16.3	18.5	18.0	29.6	39.5
>                                                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
>Exchange rate (av) Rmb per US$		3.722	3.722	3.765	4.780	5.320
> June 22, 1992	Rmb 5.447 = 1 US$
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------



If you carefully study the above table of China's economic
performance, you will notice that prior to the Tienamann
Square incident China was heading for economic disaster...
declining real GNP growth and double digit inflation, current
account balance turning more negative, and the growth in
gold reserves losing steam.

After Tienamann, and after the hardliners managed to
consolidate their control of China, China's pre-Tienamann
economic slide was quickly brought under control.
The social 'dicipline' imposed by the hardliner's 
economic policies drastically reversed China's pre-
Tienamann economic slide.

Before Tienamann, China's economy was overheating.
Inflation had increased to an unacceptable range of
being in the double digits.  After Tienamann,
inflation was cut drastically to only approximately 2%.
The pre-Tienamann decline in real GNP growth was reversed.
The current account balance switched from negative -4.3 $bn
to +12.0 $bn, and the gold reserves growth started to
regain strength.

One conclusion one can get from this analysis is that
the path towards progress is a bloody one.  It is up
to future generations to decide whether or not the
death of a few thousand students (possibly misguided
and used by the West) was an acceptible price to pay
for progress of the nation as a whole.  It may be
highly probable that in the minds of the hundreds 
of millions of farmers and workers of China, who did
not have the "privilege" nor the luck to be able to
get a university education, that this may be an 
acceptible price to pay.

Since a university education is in all practicality
government supported in China, each university student
is indirectly supported by thousands of workers and
farmers.  It is likey that these workers and farmers
will have little sympathy for these students, especially
those who, after they complete their undergraduate
studies in China, go off to another country and never
returning to China to pay off their debt to society.