Soaring China - Curriculum must reflect power shift

SIXTY-TWO years after Mao Tse-tung led the revolution that established his autocratic, brutal and hugely influential communist People’s Republic, China has become the world’s second largest economy by leapfrogging its neighbour Japan.

In the Year of the Rabbit China has shown that the communists are better capitalists than the capitalists.

This is an amazing transformation, possibly without equal anywhere in the world in modern times. China, and to a lesser degree the other BRIC countries, Brazil, India and Russia, are setting the pace in the world economy. The old world — us — can only look with a mixture of amazement, concern and some envy at soaring growth figures.

Japan’s 42-year reign as America’s dauphin ended with a contraction in the Japanese economy in the final quarter of last year. China pulled ahead with a GDP total of €4.36 trillion compared to €4.06 trillion for Japan.

America, despite its current difficulties, remains by a considerable margin, the largest economy with GDP of €10.4 trillion in 2009. Ireland’s GDP was €41,378 million in the third quarter of last year.

China’s pace of growth in the last three months of 2010 — 9.8% — surpassed even the wildest performances of our Celtic Tiger days and was considerably beyond what analysts had expected.

This pace seems unsustainable and probably means that government will have to tighten monetary policy, which could eventually lead the Chinese currency to appreciate against the dollar. This would not be unwelcome by Americans who have been trying to persuade China to allow the renminbi appreciate more rapidly. Just as we are trying to renegotiate debt arrangements with the ECB, America would welcome anything that might make its obligations to China more manageable.

Growing demands for better working conditions and pay by millions of Chinese factory workers are likely to slow growth as well.

The soothsayers suggest that after pushing ahead of Germany, France, Britain and Japan, China will catch up with America in less than two decades. Whether President Obama’s weekend announcement of €1.1 trillion in budget cuts will contribute to narrowing that gap remains to be seen but it is certain that the architecture of the world economy is being rearranged in a profound way.

What does all of this mean for Ireland and Europe?

One of the few cheering pieces of economic data in recent times has been the increase in Irish exports. These figures echo current thinking that we will have to build our economic future on the export of goods and services. If we are to have any hope of doing this then we must equip ourselves to participate in a world economy where China’s influence will grow and grow.

Surely it is time that Mandarin became an option in our schools. Irish universities already have strong links with China and it may be possible to come to some sort of reciprocal arrangement where our second-level students have greater opportunities to study the language becoming ever more important in the world economy. This interim arrangement might sustain us until such time as enough Irish teachers are in a position to teach Mandarin. Pretending that we do not need to do this is not an option.