Recently posted on China Dialogue, an extensive briefing on Chinese consumption and consumer culture:
While countries around the world are benefiting from low-cost Chinese manufacturing, China is also providing – through both production and imports — a new world of consumer goods and services for its own people, who increasingly have the money with which to acquire them. The growing culture of consumption and consumerism in traditionally frugal China has serious environmental impacts, however...
…In a globalised world, goods and services previously out of reach in developing countries – things once considered to be luxuries – are now seen as necessities by many: televisions, mobile telephones and other electronic gadgetry, cars and airline travel. Internationally known brands of clothing and other products abound in China’s biggest cities (particularly Beijing and Shanghai), along with an increasing number of western restaurant and coffee-shop franchises. Consumerism has been termed the new “ism” in China, linking happiness to material goods and helping to drive the economy.
Hand in hand with consumerism is consumption, which in some cases means the using up of a resource. China’s goal of achieving a first-world lifestyle for its people will double the world’s human-resource use. …As China (and India) continue to develop rapidly, the global footprint grows. Worldwatch says that “if by 2030 China and India alone were to achieve a per-capita footprint equivalent to that of Japan today, together they would require a full planet Earth to meet their needs.” [Full Text]
Technorati Tags: China, sustainable development
