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In the documentary, The People’s Republic of Capitalism, Ted Koppel, the narrator, examines the economic situation in China and reveals how the US and China are inextricably interwoven. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the documentary in the context of business and economics. Major themes of the film will be discussed considering their relation to the focal points of Chinese history. Sources providing a thorough insight into Chinese history and its relationship with Western nations will be explored.
The central themes of The People’s Republic of Capitalism are the intricacies of the Chinese experiment with capitalism restrained by the authoritarian government and interdependence of American and Chinese economies. Ted Koppel approaches the subject matter by interviewing people that represent various strata of today’s Chinese society. Among those people are Chinese bang-bang men, formerly called coolies, scientists, students, new Chinese millionaires, farmers, as well as assembly line workers, and business people both from China and the USA. These interviews provide an in-depth and thorough look into today’s situation and demonstrate the entanglements of people’s lives influenced by the complexities of the Chinese American economic relationship.
This is a high-quality documentary that might change one’s understanding of the world’s economy. The film consists of parts, or chapters, introduced by cutscenes, which strengthen the feeling of paradox and high contrast of life in modern China. Shooting in urban and rural areas represents a full scale of highly variegated opinions. There are millions of peasants who struggle every day for their meager living, while the rising middle class enjoys the luxuries. It is possible to note that the mass of poor people is called the Chinese paradox in the documentary (The People’s Republic of Capitalism). All of them are being the county’s weakness on the one hand and tending to become its most significant strength through the high ambition and eagerness to change their life.
Furthermore, the documentary under analysis cannot but touch some ethical issues while focusing on the Chinese American economic relationship. What China is offering today is cheap labor that is a foundation of its new economy. Turning big cities, such as Chongqing, into industrial hubs allows providing thousands of people with workplaces. All these processes have an impact on America, where many people find their jobs shipped overseas. The paradox is that Americans, who lost their jobs, have to save money by shopping for the cheap products made in China, but this is how they actually lost their careers in the first place. Another ethical question covered in the documentary considers meager wages in China that are nowhere near as competitive as their counterparts in the USA. What is worse, Chinese managers are pretty aware of the situation and support this system.
Modern Chinese history and economic situation root back to the nineteenth century and the main event of that time, the Opium War (1839-42), that burst between China and the British government. Two Opium Wars resulted in China’s loss of power and sovereign right to control its economy, as well as the degradation of the population because of the mass use of opium. According to Platt, the Opium War is considered a starting point of modern Chinese history and the beginning of a complicated relationship with Western countries (xviii). Two hundred years ago, China was aggressively pushed into free trade, a landmark of imperialism reality, being deprived of its territorial sovereignty as well as its traditional way of development. In 100 years, China reversed from a prominent civilization to a subjected and torn territory.
Since the times of the Opium War, China endured a turbulent period of political changes and economic deterioration. When the People’s Republic of China came into being, these privileges were abolished. As it is claimed in the documentary, China failed to create a classless society, and the Socialist dream was lost somewhere between the mansions of the new rich people and tiny farmhouses that hardly provide one’s living. At the same time, it is possible to note that China becomes a place where such gaps could be bridged (The People’s Republic of Capitalism). The narrator also suggests that the experiment with capitalism offers a “window of hope” (Koppel) for the young Chinese with education. Many of them struggle to learn the English language to fit into the new global economy being encouraged by the Chinese government.
One of the guiding spirits of the documentary is that the USA and China have become trade partners and created a win-win situation, which is profitable for both economies from political, financial, humanitarian standpoints (The People’s Republic of Capitalism). This might be considered as a rather aggressive endeavor to impose this view on people especially considering the present situation, although historically, the USA-China relationship “set a more positive pattern than most of the British” (Platt 9). Unfortunately, since the documentary was filmed, the Chinese economy has declined drastically. As for the partnership, China and the USA have been fighting the trade war, which reminds the situation of the Ch’ing, with some products being shifted from China. It turns out that the Chinese experiment with capitalism also failed to feed the millions of Chinese peasants and lead the country to its growth.
All things considered, the documentary manages to demonstrate the vicious circle of the global economic mechanisms that are shaping China in their image and making it impossible to develop in a unique way. Notwithstanding all the difficulties, China is trying to re-establish its leading position in the world today, taking into regard the interdependent character of the relationship with the rest of the world. There are numerous works focusing on the US-China economic relationship, and The People’s Republic of China is the one that presents an unbiased view on all the perplexities and injustices of the business and financial and the human stories involved.
Works Cited
Platt, Stephen R. Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China’s Last Golden Age. Alfred A. Knopf, 2018.
Koppel, Ted, narrator. The People’s Republic of Capitalism: The Economic Ties That Bind China and the United States Together. The Discovery Channel, 2009.
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