Paw Bunsong Matkhao on China

Here's a recent note written by AAN president Paw Bunsong Matkhao, after returning home from a trip to China with Focus on the Global South and other parts of our network:


What I've learned about Chinese Society.

Chinese society has changed faster than I thought. I thought China was a type of socialism, but I now see it’s also capitalist. Industry has developed and agricultural labor is currently moving towards working in industry. This is very similar to Thailand 30 years ago. You have Chinese farmers that think the problem of land limitation is a good thing. Farming means production for self-sufficiency, but if you’re able to find work elsewhere, you can earn a better income.

Once you have enough money to build a new home, your thinking begins to change. In this way, China is really entering the capitalist system within state controls. The space between rural and urban Chinese is wide. Pressure on the environment is great because of the expansion of industry. Water is polluted. There are impacts on the agricultural system, as the atmosphere is being poisoned. I got to see the agricultural system and it really worried me. If I were a farmer who ditched my land for industrial work like those in Thailand, it won't be long before I start to fall apart, because farmers are reliant on resources from outside, they are no longer self-reliant. The amount of seeds, chemicals, pesticides that a farmer must buy are all gradually increasing. They buy seeds every year because they can't save seeds - so what will farmers be left with in the long term?

There is a great chance for Thai farmers to destroy their soil and fall apart financially. Yet one good thing about China is that the state has worked to support farmers and control land grabs. They work to develop farmers' way of thinking and have insurance programs for food security, and production-focused careers. I’m not worried about China’s role as a competitor in the agriculture sector for the long term, because China is fully pursuing industrialization of their food system. The plan for the Chinese leaders is to develop a policy to become the world’s major food producer, growing domestically or internationally and exporting food, but this will take a long time.

As for the people's movement and the work of NGOs in China, it isn't yet clear or concrete, because of a lot of limitations. For example, in the structure of NGO leadership and work, NGOs are working to help the state. They don't think to work independently, as a movement for society. China is moving into a new type of socialism, with capitalism inside of the state system. It’s going to be the fuse of a time bomb’s that creates a new time of resistance from the people. Agriculture is China is much like Thailand 30 years ago, the only thing needed is to increase production, without thinking about the environment. There is labor migration, with the agriculture sector moving towards industry more and more - but maybe this is fitting - because farmers have very little land and have very little access to information about the impacts of free trade. For example, when I asked them about low prices for their crops, they answered, "it's because the economy isn't good."