BY PETER WICKHAM

ALTHOUGH the vast majority of our consumer durables are made in China, few Barbadians ever give much thought to this vast country and emerging super power that is literally on the other side of the world.

The fact that it takes 18 hours, over two days, to reach China's capital city Beijing, where the native tongue is hardly recognisable to most Barbadians, means that few of us visit that place or even give much thought to the politics and culture of a country that now occupies the spotlight as a result of the Summer Olympics.

In an environment where ignorance is the "norm", perceptions based on the propaganda of those who care to express an pinion easily become our reality or worse yet, our gospel and in the case of China, we have more recently been reading from the book of CNN, BBC and (God forbid) Fox News.

Against this background, I along with five other journalists from Barbados recently welcomed the opportunity to briefly tour China and form our own perceptions of this Asian country. Since I am inclined to take most interest in a country's politics, that issue is central to my initial report on this sojourn.

China is correctly referred to as The People's Republic of China. however, Western reference to this country invariably coins the phrase "Communist China" which conjures up ideas of a strong central government which imposes itself on the individual who has little freedom.

As a trained political scientist, however, my understanding of communism is slightly less narrow and relates to the economic arrangements which predominate. In this regard, the reality of China surprised all of us, since the free market in that country is alive and well and the economy is anything but centralised. As it was explained, the 1978 reforms led by Deng Xiaoping <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping> radically changed the world's largest economy to a point where communism appears to be more of a dream for Chinese leaders than a characteristic of the present economic arrangement.

Against this economic background the visitor to China is greeted by a modern infrastructure which appears to be "Western" and substantially more extensive than that which greets the visitor on arrival in New York or London.

Moreover, the traditional "signposts" of Western culture such as McDonalds are prominently displayed within the Chinese landscape to the point where a Western visitor should feel very much at home.

It is clear that Communism in China is defined in a way that is very unique since the Chinese government encourages private sector enterprise without its participation and in some cases partners with the private sector to establish major projects, some of which revert to government after a fixed time period, but the vast majority remain private enterprises.

Remnants of traditional communism present themselves in relation to the organisation of the Chinese central government where the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leads and does not encourage the type of competitive elections between parties that we normally associate with a healthy democracy in the west.

This is unusual to us. However, upon closer examination it is also clear that China does have its own unique system for electing leaders which might be different but is perhaps no less effective in the context of a population of 1.3 billion people over nine million suareq kilometres and 23 provinces.

To be sure, the Chinese leader is elected but by the National People's Congress (NPC) and the fact that the NPC is also elected provides a clear link to people's power and proves the existence of democracy in China.

As is the use in the United States (and Barbados) their system of democracy is not perfect, however I am inclined to think that it is unrealistic (especially given their culture) to expect 1.3 billion people to register and vote for one of several competing presidential candidates who would each need to consume an inordinate amount of money to canvas and influence voters across that vast country.

Notwithstanding, it was clear that China maintains a substantial standing army and police force, although it does not require national service in the way that Israel does.

As a result, there is a substantial police presence most places which the visitor to Washington should be well accustomed to.

There are, however, also rumours of state monitoring which seem "fanciful" to say the least.

Certainly as one is exposed to the vastness of the population of Beijing (alone) which is 170 million, it is difficult to imagine any government with sufficient time and resources to monitor the activity of individuals on a continuous basis.

* Peter W. Wickham (wickham@sunbeach.net (mailto:wickham@sunbeach.net) is a political consultant and a director of Caribbean Development Research Services (CADRES).