Shenyang, the microcosm of China

choi

Simon Denyer, China’s Ghost Towns Point to Nation’s Waning Fortunes. Washington Post, Aug 25, 2015 (available now).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/w ... ddfd0cda_story.html

Quote:

" This is a region, as the government official ['dealing with economic policy in the Liaoning government, who spoke on condition of anonymity'] admits, without the culture of entrepreneurship you find on China’s southern and eastern coasts.  'Here it is not encouraged to start up your own business,' he said. 'Everyone just wants a stable job with a big state-owned enterprise.'

"Liaoning’s economy grew by a staggering average of 12.8 percent a year between 2003 and 2012, even faster than the 10.7 percent recorded by the nation as whole. Now, official figures show the national economy growing at 7 percent, but growth in Liaoning tumbling to just 2.6 percent in the first half of this year, the lowest of the country’s 31 provinces. * * * says Shen Minggao 沈明高, Citi[group 花旗]'s chief economist for Greater China, a deterioration he calls 'astonishing.'

"The Tiexi district 铁西区 of Shenyang is nicknamed the 'Ruhr of the East' * * * Yet here, the backbone of China’s economy appears to be wilting.  At state-owned companies, workers say fewer shifts means their monthly pay has fallen from up to 5,000 yuan ($780) two years ago to more like 2,000 now.  At private factories like the Shenyang Heavy Machinery Huayang Mechanical Co 沈阳华扬重型机械设备有限公司, the situation is bleaker. Here, just 30 workers man old-fashioned lathes making machinery for the coal industry in a factory that once employed 400.

"But both [Xi and Li] have also signaled a reluctance to turn their backs on the old ways entirely. In April, Li [Keqiang] called for the government to launch major infrastructure projects — even though revenues are down 23 percent in the first half of this year.

"it is the end of the construction boom that may have hit heavy industries like steel and cement the hardest.  'It may take a 10 to 20 percent capacity cut before these sectors become profitable again,' said Citi’s Shen. 'If they do cut capacity, the economy will get worse, but if they don’t, the problem will drag on for a few more years.'

"At the gleaming new factory complex run by the Shenyang Machine Tool Group [Co] (SYMG) 沈阳机床股份有限公司, [there are] fully automated lathes and milling machines * * * company chairman Xiyou Guan 关锡友 董事长 [1964- ] * ** SYMG rose from being the 36th largest machine tool company in the world in 2002 to the largest in 2011. Times are much tougher now — revenues have since dropped sharply and the company is projecting a net loss in the first half of this year, while it has fallen back to third place globally. * * * turning to his colleagues to cite a line from Russian writer Maxim Gorky[, Guan said,] ‘Let the tempest come strike harder!’ — because this will give birth to new things much faster.”

Note:
(a) "This is Shenfu New Town 抚顺 沈抚新城 in the northeastern province of Liaoning, built to handle the overflow from the once-booming industrial cities of Shenyang and Fushun."
(b) The Song of the Stormy Petrel  海燕之歌
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Song_of_the_Stormy_Petrel
(the last line of the 1901 poem is what the seabird called "storm petrel" sings: Let the tempest come strike harder! 让暴风雨来得更猛烈些吧！)

Of course in out times in Taiwan we heard of Gorky who had something to do with literature--but nothing else. The Chinese translation in (b), I find in the Web.