Blood-stained growth reveals safety scandals
- Source: Global Times
- [22:21 July 20 2009]
- Comments
Wang Yang, the Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial CPC Committee, recently warned that GDP is not equal to wealth. According to Wang, the government should emphasize improving production capability, rather than boosting statistics during the economic crisis.
Wang said, “Some of our GDP statistics really look good. However, they actually wasted, rather than enhanced, social wealth. For instance, when a bridge was built, GDP was created. Then the bridge collapsed and was demolished. GDP was produced again. Then a new bridge was built.
The GDP was three times the original, but the social wealth produced in this process was still the same, if not less.”
On the same day, Bo Xilai, the Secretary of the Chongqing Municipal CPC Committee, commented that both GDP and safety deserve close attention.
Bo stressed that officials should refuse GDP produced at the cost of human lives, and work hard to prevent serious accidents.
GDP made at the price of human lives is often called “blood-stained GDP.” During the financial crisis, many officials have turned to blood-stained GDP in order to make their political performance look better.
During the economic downturn, it’s important to eliminate redundant production capacities, promote industrial upgrading, and adjust the overall economic structure, thus transforming the crisis into an opportunity. However, this process is slow. Thus many officials would rather improve visible statistics first, like the employment rate and local GDP. Scientific development is just a slogan to them.
Poorly-built projects therefore go ahead, and blood-stained GDP prevails. Consequently, there are often serious accidents with great loss of life.
Not only the officials in Guangdong and Chongqing, but those across the nation, should transform their mindset to really focus on scientific development, refuse the lure of blood-stained GDP, and regard safety in production as more important than GDP itself.