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.The Chinese and Indian ascents are not in fact the ascents ofentire countries, but of only portions of the population and partsof the country.Both are coincident with the relative decline ofmillions of people.India s slums, where animals and people alikelead a miserable existence, are often a stone s throw from thecountry s sparkling new hospital complexes, pharmaceutical fac-tories, and computer plants.It s been 60 years since the British leftthe country, and yet more than half of the Indian populationremains illiterate.Only one in four children attends school.The government in Beijing is pursuing a two-China policy.Shanghai, a city of 18 million people, is another New York, witha standard of living on par with that of Portugal.Barren westernChina, however, which makes up two-thirds of the country s totalland mass, remains virtually untouched by the boom.Ethnicminorities living in China s border region are familiar with theChinese economic miracle by hearsay alone.Their standard of liv-ing corresponds to that of the poorest of African countries.Forthem, the special economic zones, with their sparkling cities, areparadise on earth and the sum of all desires.Additionally, the state extends its protection of its productivecore beyond the domestic front, taking great pains to do so onthe international stage.One of the first steps it takes is to use acurrency that is not freely convertible.By fixing an artificially lowexchange rate for the Renminbi, the Chinese government hasconstructed a protective barrier that has served the country well. 186 GABOR STEINGARTForeign capital can enter the country with relative ease, but get-ting it back out is another story.The Chinese currency s value rep-resents the biggest export promotion program a government hasever funded.In return, China s currency policy keeps the cost ofimports, that is, orders in America and Europe, artificially high.China s successes are impressive.Significantly more goods areshipped to the United States than China imports from the UnitedStates.For years the Chinese finance minister and the U.S.secre-tary of commerce have encouraged a significant currency appreci-ation, a policy even the U.S.president has supported.Meanwhile,the Chinese leadership is busy laughing its way to the bank.Thecountry s productive core can depend on the state for protection.Betrayed, Poisoned, and Sold Down the River:Why Exploiting the Environment Is Good for GrowthIn addition to human labor, a second resource is available to theemerging nations to fuel their economic machinery at bargain-basement prices: the natural environment.They exploit the envi-ronment to their heart s content and with few if any misgivings.Mother Earth serves as a cesspool, the desert is used as a garbagedump, and the lungs of neighboring residents often double as theinitial filter for factory exhausts.The pesticides used liberally inintensive factory farming end up in the food and water supply,turning the human body itself into a toxic waste dump of sorts.The light gray layer of smog that has developed in Shanghai prob-ably contains most of the industrial hazardous particles and pollu-tants known to humans.Many local residents seek to protectthemselves from this toxic cloud by wearing masks.Chinese indus-trial zones lead the world in the incidence of respiratory disease.China is responsible for nothing short of monstrous growth inemissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) gas, the main culprit in globalwarming an increase of 100 percent since 1990.In a few years,perhaps as early as 2008, the People s Republic will have surpassedthe United States as the world s largest emitter of greenhouse THE WAR FOR WEALTH 187gases.The effects are already palpable in China.Last year was thewarmest since 1951, and last winter brought new record highs.InBeijing, the normally frigid Chinese New Year was the warmeston record a springlike 63 degrees Fahrenheit.Meteorologistspoint out that China has had 19 warm winters since 1987.Theeffects of these higher temperatures are already clearly reflectedin the water balance of huge sections of the country.In additionto fast-paced urban and industrial expansion, erosion and siltinghave cost the country valuable farmland.As one of the conse-quences of this shrinkage, China has become a major buyer ofbasic foods on international markets
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