Older people like myself, who were always aware of the subdued lives of Chinese citizens during the 1960’s and 1970’s must be in awe of how far they managed to progress and how rapidly; as soon as the Chinese Economic Reform began in December 1978.
Personally I think of words like ‘astounding’, ‘incredible’ and ‘unbelievable’.
I was lucky enough to be a delegate on many UK Marine Industry sponsored Trade Missions to China for a decade or more, from the early 1990’s and saw for myself the transition that was taking place in the Chinese maritime sector. Outside of the business aspect, we also watched as the masses and masses of pedal cycles were replaced by mopeds, then scooters, then motor cycles and now motor cars. Great for improving the lifestyle of the wealthier citizens but not so good, unfortunately, for the environment in which all of the city-dwelling Chinese residents have to live, work and breath.
In the UK we endured our own air pollution problems with the great London Smog of 1952, which caused all sorts of havoc and health problems and resulted in the Clean Air Act, with its smokeless zones, being introduced in 1956. More than half a century later and it’s all fine now.
My admiration for China and its rapid success is driven by my misguided belief that ‘they make everything the world needs and at a fraction of the price any other nation can make it for’. This is very true in many cases, otherwise China would not have expanded and achieved the positon of increased global power and influence that it has, since 1978.
However, I do know from first hand experience that there is still room for other nations to survive and grow along side the overwhelming success of China.
Solar Solve exports some of its products to China as do many other UK based businesses and in fact probably all the nations of the world sell something to them.
Today I produced a news release that will be posted onto the Solar Solve website here: https://www.solasolv.com/news-and-events/. It will also be sent to many of the worlds marine media organisations. It is about Norwegian fast ferry builder Brødrene and how they regularly build composite vessels for Chinese / Hong Kong ferry operators and they are today recognized as the world leader for fuel efficient low emission carbon fibre ferries. That is a significant achievement.
