By Nick Land

Social development is essentially identical to urbanization. This assertion might sound brutally dogmatic, but its economic basis is exceptionally solid. Since the proportion of average incomes dedicated to food declines with a rise in overall prosperity, rural populations must either move into alternative fields of endeavour or fall behind. Rural life is badly suited to non-agricultural production, so economic development necessarily entails the progressive urbanization of the population.

At the beginning of the 19th century, only 2 per cent of the world's population was urbanized. Now, 200 years later, the figure has risen to almost 50 per cent, with the trend still strengthening. As market economics and resultant economic growth spreads around the world, the already dizzy speed of urbanization looks set to accelerate further.

As the world's most rapidly developing region over the last two decades, China has become acutely aware of this trend. Indeed, for many Chinese it is interpreted as something close to a crisis. With three-quarters of the country's population still working the land, the historical task posed by mass urbanization can seem daunting. In some it provokes a response not far removed from paralyzing despair.

The situation is further clouded by the already existing problems of urban unemployment associated with economic restructuring. China's "smoke-stack" heavy industries, in particular, face declining competitiveness and employment levels, contributing to a widespread anxiety that the country's urban centres are already suffering from a "labour glut", even before rural migration is factored into the equation.

Before succumbing entirely to gloom, a mental step backwards is advisable, in order to better contemplate the "big picture".

The most important corrective to an excessively bleak evaluation of China's situation is also the most straightforward: recognizing that almost all the problems the country faces are symptoms of success. If China faces a huge task restructuring its industries, creating employment opportunities and fostering relatively orderly mass urbanization - which it does - these tasks have only arisen as a consequence of its recent astounding development achievements: radical advances in global economic integration, industrial modernization and rural productivity. Over the past two decades, a national "great leap forward" has become an incontestable reality, resulting in unprecedented growth rates, nutritional abundance and a general climate of rising expectations.

Stagnation and social conservatism is often more comforting than progress and innovation. In this respect the process of "reform and opening up" has undoubtedly deepened uncertainties and worries, by triggering a tidal wave of social change and (often frightening) new opportunities. In particular, the increasing emphasis on personal initiative and responsibility that comes with the market economy can prove distressing to those familiar with a more paternalistic social order.

Such anxieties should not be taken as an excuse to backtrack or to throw the country off course, because only reform and opening up - freedom - can provide the Chinese people with the opportunities they need to solve the complex problems of mass urbanization for themselves. "The peasants want freedom" said Mao Zedong. That is not a problem for China - it's the solution.

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