An APEC scraper

President Xi Jinping visited Ulan Bator in Mongolia early this year and shared the image of China as a train on a roll welcoming all to come on board, appropriate to the now vibrant image of the Silk Economic Circle (visions from Seoul to London overland and maritime) that China unleashed directly on Indian Ocean islands to the Suez and resurgent nations of Central Asia.

The weeklong 2014 meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation in Beijing on Nov. 5-12, aims to “Shape[ing] the Future through Asia-Pacific Partnership,” notable for its collaborative more than competitive tone, fitting next to the Bird’s Nest at the 2008 Beijing Olympic grounds where athletes were exhorted to break their own record before going after those of others.

To develop consensus (my parenthetical notes) on regional economic integration (loosen up on protectionism), promote innovation and development (quit being just a factory outlet but create), reform and grow stagnant economies (relate to each other’s economies, damn it!), and strengthen infrastructure connectivity (build planes and tarmacs, cyber terminals and satellites, ports and ships, rails and trains, roads and electric cars, bicycle ramps and pedestrian lanes), APEC has an agenda toward concrete results this week (today is last business day).

When I made my inland trip to China just after Tiananmen in ‘89, the boulevards (da jie) were tree-lined, and folks pedaled about in their office attires. The cities were not high-tech yet but they were green! That has changed. The price of economic progress is high. To reduce PMI alerts in the northeast this week, construction work was suspended and government employees went on holiday in Beijing while the meeting was in session.

With 1.3 billion people targeted in the China Dream, a democratic impulse is very much alive. A people who only 40 years ago endured devastating hardship and famine had made its space technology and its applications glocal in the market of droids and androids, staying on the black side of the ledger, and be proud!

APEC was established in the year I peeked at the Forbidden City in ‘89. It now involves 21 Pacific Rim economies. A quaint tradition has leaders dress in the host nation’s attire during the leaders meeting. Monday night was dress up day at the Water Cube, aka National Aquatic Center, where President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Li Yuan received the head-of-states attired in various shades of silk (a designer’s Tang Zhuang Han Fu aka new modern formal suit Xin Zhong Zhuang for the occasion.)

My delight is on the ground effect of the “foreigners’ presence” in country. “Face” wishing to be seen in good light and held in high esteem makes for a great op to display the best china, as it were. Liaoning 2013 had my school participate in the China Games 2013. After scraping off pasted posters for two years before, a maintenance member proudly showed me the scraper he added to his tools. He gestured that I did not have to bring mine any more as it was now his job to scrape. The word that certain posts and walls were not going to tolerate impromptu posters any further might have been made!

While I waited for a bus last week, I saw a street cleaner in orange vest peeling off ads on streetlight poles and lampposts. Thinking it anomalous, simply an individual’s sole initiative, I noticed police cars clear out parked vehicles and unauthorized streets vendors by the usually crowded metro stop escalators two blocks from my place. On Saturday morning, a male youth came to the ground floor doors in my neighborhood scraping off ads. The APEC weeklong meetings must have sent the word out that the “rule of law” can be applied through the scraper.

On a walk through the university, I noticed that the maintenance crew scraped ads and posters from the pillars of the dorm where I lived. A class monitor once found me sweeping the classroom floor in our room after a session and she declared that they had “someone paid to do that.” That it was not reflected in the tidiness of the room.

China has a “someone-paid-to-do-that” mentality, so folks just spit sunflower shells on the streets, polished floors, and newly swept stairs. Indiscriminate pasting of ads on doors and walls is common. A former student came into my quad this week and commented that the playground cleared of parked cars looked like a “village.”

The democratization of initiative, creativity, and innovation is a pillar of China’s dream. China is now open to foreigners from around the world. It is sensitive to “face,” an incentive Xi Jinping does not hesitate to exploit to motivate behavior. APEC pushed to tidy up surroundings a bit; one hopes that the local efforts keep going. 

If the China Games 2013 at my university was any indication, pride in clean posts, poles and walls might linger longer after the APEC is over. Or at least my village at the old Shenbei Center continues to keep “face” before a resident foreigner who walks around with a camera!