Читать книгу The State of China Atlas - Robert Benewick - Страница 7

Through the Beijing Summer Olympics of 2008 the Chinese government presented an image of a nation deeply linked to its past and increasingly confident and engaged in the world. The picture was one of power, orderly growth and development. Yet the same year also saw a major protest in Tibet, devastating natural disasters and consistent protests as the Olympic torch made its way around the world. How do we make sense of this complex society that is undergoing the kinds of changes that many of us can barely imagine? Reforms have impacted on every aspect of economy, society and state and have produced new winners and losers. A great place to start unraveling this fascinating puzzle is the latest edition of The State of China Atlas. All our futures are bound up with what is happening in China, and this book is a welcome resource for anyone seeking to understand the momentous changes taking place. As the saying goes, a picture speaks a thousand words, and this is certainly true with this wonderful volume. The maps are well chosen and provide all the information that is needed by anyone wanting to get to grips with China. Even for those who have studied China for many years, the maps present new insights. For students, the Atlas is a dynamic and exciting way to bring China alive. It contains so much useful information on every topic crucial to China’s development and is a key reference work. The authors have even found a way to capture the Party-State in visual form, no mean achievement! What is revealed in these pages is a China where multiple realities operate beneath the facade of a unitary nation-state. Not only does the terrain range from the huge oceans to the east, the massive plateau to the west and the surrounding mountains that have helped China retain a certain insularity, but also the peoples of China, the climate, its industry and its agriculture show tremendous diversity. The State of China Atlas shows how, since 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has placed its stamp on this varied terrain. The CCP’s vision of a modern state and its policies of industrialization have had a marked impact on the physical structure of towns and countryside as well as on people’s lives. On taking power, the CCP laid out a vision of the future that was inspired by the Soviet Union. A modern China would be one that was urban and industrial, with production socialized. The private sphere was to be destroyed and the rural sector was to be placed in service of the industrial push. This produced an ugly urban landscape, and even historic cities such as Beijing had much of the grace and charm ripped out them. The industrial push made smokestack factories a familiar part of many cities, with little or no idea of zoning and protection of green areas. The countryside was also transformed, culminating in the commune movement in the late-1950s. Campaigns to boost grain production led to mountain slopes being cleared of trees, and good grazing land being plowed under. Rural industrialization led to more forests being ripped up to produce steel in “backyard furnaces”, much of which was useless. Despite such attempts to produce a dull conformity, China remained full of contradictions and variety, and these have been allowed to blossom again since economic reforms were promoted with such zeal from the late-1970s on. As the Atlas shows, these reforms have touched on every aspect of Chinese life, changing the appearance of both rural and urban China, while binding the two closer together than in the Mao years. Cities are less homogeneous than before, and the drab Stalinesque town centers have been transformed with the rise of gleaming, glass-fronted skyscrapers housing luxury offices, shopping malls and the ubiquitous McDonald’s. These buildings, and designer brands such as Gucci, are the new symbols of modernization, and much of the old architecture that survived the Maoist blitz has been bulldozed out of the way. Communities have been broken

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