European Integration of Moldovans as seen from… China

{Info-Prim Neo Feature} Moldovan citizen Sergiu Motreniuc is 32 and has been living together with his family in Beijing, China, for more than 7 years. With his two university degrees and one of his wife, he couldn’t find a job and a source of living among 3.5 million of his compatriots in the Republic of Moldova; instead he found one among almost 1.4 billion Chinese – all eager to work and live. In Beijing, Sergiu Motreniuc has his own business, not a big one; he is also an employee of a local company that is offering services of assistance and consultancy to rather big Moldovan companies doing business in China, as well as to some Chinese companies interested in doing business with the Republic of Moldova. For example, the last Chinese mission which he accompanied to Chisinau had meetings at the highest level of Moldovan authorities, this being a clear indication of the weight of those companies in China. His family doesn't own a home yet, but relying solely on his earnings they can afford paying the rent of the apartment, a rather big one, and keeping his wife at home to take care of their 3.5-year-old daughter, who has some health problems, as well as to send the daughter to a privileged day care, 1-2 days a week, mostly attended by children of Americans staying in Beijing. [Lyric digression and statistics on China – with a look back at Moldova] Today, many of the very many Chinese have found their place in life at home, in their own country. Together they build modern roads that Moldova has not even dreamt of. New vehicles and new people circulate on these new roads to and from their homes, offices, and enterprises, all new and modern. People occasionally stop at shops, cafes, and restaurants, which are all swarming with people, are new and modern. Necessities sometimes bring people to public modern WCs, which are free of charge and where internal rules of maintenance state in all seriousness that two flies are not allowed to fly in the same space at a time… New and old streets in large cities are broad and abounding in cars of all kinds, most of them produced in China. The streets are clean both because the state takes care of them and because the homeless, inevitably present, are stimulated to deliver the collected garbage against payment to the state. In general, modern Chinese are bright, quick to speak, work, and act; in a word, are modern or strive to be so. Certainly, there are exceptions, but exceptions, as we know it, confirm the general rule, even if these exceptions involve very large proportions for an imagination of someone who is used to Moldovan proportions… The message of the above lyric digression can be simply stated in the language of figures and data, selected from Chinese and international sources. For example: [- In 2011, China built 40 thousand km of highways.] In 2003, when it had already developed an impressive growth pace in road building, China had a total of 40 thousand km of highways. At the end of 2009, the total length of rural roads reached the figure of 3.369 million km. This fact made 99.6% of China villages covered by roads network. [- China has been the world's second largest economy for the last two years.] The economy of China between 2003 and 2011 developed in an average annual pace of 10.7%, as compared with the global average of 3.9% registered in the same period. China's share in the global economy grew from 4.4 % in 2002 to 10% in 2011. In the world ranking, China’s economy climbed from the 6th place in 2002 to second place in 2010, which was maintained in 2011. [- First place in the world in construction business.] Foreign contracts earned Chinese investors more than one hundred billion dollars by the end of 2011. Of 225 world's largest businesses in constructions, 54 are contracted by China, which ranks it on the first place in the world in this area. The volume of Chinese investments abroad increased from 2.7 billion dollars in 2002 to 60 billion dollars in 2011. [ - The most attractive investment zone of the world.] Mainland China remains the most attractive investment zone of the world, followed by India, the United States of America, Brazil and Indonesia. [- China has the biggest currency reserve of the world,] which in 2011 constituted 3.2 trillion USD. The total capital of the People’s Bank of China occupies the first place in the world exceeding that of the US Federal Reserve and the Central European Bank. [- Third place in the world in research investments.] Investments made in research activities in China in 2001 grew to 861 billion Yuan, placing the country third on the global level. During the last five years, spending on scientific research has increased by more than 20% per year. In 2000, China trained 1000 doctors of technical sciences and at present it trains 20 thousand annually. As to the number of patents, China also ranks third in the world. [- The biggest gold market of the world.] The demand of Chinese for gold jewelry covers 30% of the global demand. This fact makes China the biggest market of gold jewelry for the third consecutive quarter. China might become the largest gold market of the world this year. [- The average annual salary of an urban employee] who is not working for a private company was in 2011 - 42 thousand Yuan (6.5 thousand USD at an exchange rate of $1/6.4 Yuan), growing by 14.3% from the previous year. The average salary of private sector employees was 24 thousand Yuan (3,8 thousand USD), an increase of 18.3% on 2010. [- In 2010 in China a dollar millionaire appeared every 2 minutes.] In 2011, there were 648 super rich families in China, each of them having a fortune estimated at more than one hundred million American dollars. The country ranks fifth in the world with respect to super rich families. The number of super rich families in China grew by 20% as compared with 2010. [- In 2011, the Chinese were the most spending tourists of the world.] The average sum spent by a Chinese tourist was 813 Euro per shopping, an increase of 11% as compared with the previous year. Watches and jewelry are the most often bought items by Chinese tourists. The first three most preferred destinations of Chinese were France, the US and Australia. t is expected that the number of Chinese tourists travelling abroad this year will reach 77 million, a growth of 12% as compared with the last year. - The biggest market of arts in the world. During the last two years, China has been the largest market of arts in the world. Chinese art sales in 2011 represented 40% of the total art transactions performed globally , this being equal to the value realized by the United States and Great Britain, which ranked second and third in this area… [No illusions, but hope] It may be true that China’s growth pace has slowed down recently, but it lasted 30 years. While in China the growth pace just slowed down, other parts of the world were crisis stricken. True, it is easier to start growing from a lower level than from a higher one, but the growth has been impressive and steady. It is not random and can be repeated in other countries and is thus hope-inspiring. According to Chinese officials, China is “the biggest developing country”: “After the reform and opening to the exterior world in 1978, China’s GDP has had a growth rate of 9% per year for 33 straight years. In 2010, China became the second largest economic community in the world. The national comprehensive power and living standards have improved, but China remains a developing country, as there is a big gap in comparison with developed countries. In 2010, China’s GDP per inhabitant was under $4,000, which ranked it 94th globally, much lower than in Europe, about one tenth of the GDP per inhabitant in the USA or Great Britain. China’s population is 1.3 billion people, of which 120 million live below the poverty level set by the UN. “China has many problems and challenges ahead”, Chinese charge d’affaires Zhen Shuqin told Info-Prim Neo in an interview published on January 16, 2012. We could say that China is one of the or perhaps the only developing country that is actually developing with real results felt by the people and the other countries. It is a model that deserves to be studied. Even if cannot be fully applied in Moldova, it may provide some objective laws that can be applied here. This process amazes not just due to China's economic growth, as there might be other examples standing out better, but also due to the reorientation of the largest social-state structure in the world from a semi-feudal organization to a truly modernized one. Basic logic suggests that if this was possible in a huge, inert mechanism of over a billion people, Moldova, with or without Transnistria, could become a “candy” or a “second Switzerland” in a couple of years or even months. We should recall that before 1978 China suffered several ordeals, including that of the “cultural revolution”, during which in order to gain their daily rice on the table the half-starved people had to fight sparrows. As they had no guns or gunpowder, they had to make noise in the fields all day long so that birds couldn’t sit and fell down of tiredness. They were then collected and offered to the state alongside with reports on what was done to “accomplish party decisions”. It seems that China’s modernization relied on two elements: 1) an idea that is generally accepted by society and 2) the political will to implement it. The order matters less than their unity. As the Bible says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. Officially, they speak about the reforms operated by Chinese authorities. Unofficially, they say everything started from the slogan “Chinese, get rich!”, formulated by Deng Ziaoping, the de facto leader of China in the late 70s and early 80s. It is hard to think of a more attractive slogan for a half-starved population, dangerous both nationally and internationally. It is important that the idea was accepted and sincerely promoted by authorities who developed new game rules according to the declared goal and removed obstacles in the path of free initiative in business. Compared to Moldova’s situation today, this plan resembles the formula “European integration as national idea – the Alliance for European Integration as mechanism of promoting it”. But this is where similarities end. This national idea lacks nationwide support and even the Alliance doesn’t seem to understand its historic role. [AIE and Moldova in the history’s drawer?] Because of self-imposed limits through internal differences, the AIE members have missed for several years their chance, and duty, to genuinely promote European integration as a national idea. The Moldovans’ new-found euroskepticism can largely be attributed to the faulty governance of the AIE. Society associates European integration with chaos, incertitude, scandals, instead of clear political will to bring the country into Europe. It is true that euroskepticism was also caused by the unreasonably high expectations after the Party of Communists lost the government. However, it was AIE who promoted these expectations and failed to deliver on them. The massive political movement started by the internal and foreign opponents of Moldova’s European integration comes as no great surprise. This movement, manifested through actions such as the organization of referenda on joining other unions than the EU, presents far more danger than the actual government realizes. Once it takes place, perhaps even with the results desired by its proponents, the referendum can serve as basis for shifting the geopolitical vector of the country both by letter of law and de facto. This could happen if the next parliamentary elections are not won by the self-proclaimed pro-western parties. This isn’t impossible. In these circumstances, it might be best to remember the idea launched by Info-Prim Neo in its analysis “Moldova without internal enemies”, which was ignored by the whole political class, that the Parliament should establish by Constitution that European integration is the country’s main development vector. The first part of the analysis was published on August 1, 2011 and the second on August 9, 2011. Nonetheless, even this would not be enough. The biggest threat is that the idea of European integration in Moldova lacks a social basis that would ensure its irreversibility, as polls show. This is unlike the case of China, which during its 30 years of modernization, comparable with Moldova’s two decades of independence, managed to build a social basis. This basis was formed of the middle class, of better paid clerks and workers, of company owners with a huge financial and economic potential. All of them have something to lose and they will not accept the halt or deviation of the modernization process, or new “cultural revolutions” and “sparrow wars”, even if unwanted changes take place among the political elites. The next ordinary congress of the Chinese Communist Party will take place in October and expectation is generated by the conflicting interests of influential factions within the party. It is true, little is known about these rivalries in China or abroad. Unlike the frequent public quarrels that characterize the Moldovan political class. The great threat is that Moldova’s political pendulum may not return soon enough or even ever to the option of European integration. We must state again the lack of a social basis is related to the lack of the real results that can be felt by the ordinary man. Polls show that 3 in 4 Moldovans have a hard living. It is unlikely that the 2 and a half years remaining of AIE’s mandate will radically change the Moldovans' perception about European integration. There is however one thing AIE could obtain so that the Moldovans had something to lose with the European option, and this is the liberalized visa regime. This regime could ensure the social basis of Moldova’s European vector. The current government has every possibility and maximum obligation of obtaining this regime. Otherwise, it might go down in history as the gravedigger of Moldova’s few chances of modernization and civilization. Paradoxically, AIE can obtain from abroad more for the people, thanks to a temporary favorable geopolitical context, than it can within the country, where much depends on the existence of a national idea and of political will. The Moldovan government is actually advantaged in this regard, compared to the Chinese government, as it has the tools of a political system professing to be part of European democracy. [Valeriu Vasilica, Info-Prim Neo] {P.S. 7 years ago, after obtaining one of his two degrees in China, Sergiu Motreniuc returned to Chisinau. Unable to find his place in Moldova, he took his family to Beijing. “- Do I want to return home?” he asks himself. “- My wife would take the plane today, but I know I have to support my family. I can’t do that in Moldova”.} [V.V., IPN]