Shanghai is a modern city which rivals any in the world, Richard Prebble writes.
I am an addict.
A week going cold turkey in China forced me to admit it.
Not to drugs, but to information. I mainline information – from the internet – many times a day.
China blocks access to all the news sites I subscribe to and to artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. I hated not knowing what was happening in the Iran war.
Thirty years ago, on my first visit to China, I spent two hours at the airport filling in forms that only a bureaucrat could devise – what were the names of my grandparents and where were they born?
This trip: a simple form completed on a mobile phone, a QR code, scan fingerprints and I walked straight in.
The motorway to my hotel is one Auckland motorists can only envy.
Over many visits, I have watched China rise from poverty to a country whose cities rival any in the world. Shanghai is one of them.
At our 50-storey hotel, robots delivered parcels to rooms. On the streets were marvellous Chinese-made electric cars. I sat in one and realised the seat was massaging my back. My reaction was immediate: I want one.
China is a dynamic country.
My Chinese friends say there is virtually no crime – cameras are everywhere, and I mean everywhere.
Public behaviour has improved. But people still do not queue. At the breakfast buffet, a young man simply pushed past me. When drivers do the same, it is unsettling.
There is a cost to this.
Where trust is low, every transaction becomes suspect. A pair of brand-name sneakers proved so uncomfortable they must have been fake. Into the bin they went. I was reluctant to buy, unsure whether it was what it claimed to be.
There is an absence of the everyday trust that lubricates a market economy.
Authoritarian censorship meant I could not ask ChatGPT where the nearest cash machine was.
The contrast with Japan began at the airport. A two-hour queue to get through immigration – the worst I have experienced.
Now that I could again consult ChatGPT, it offered two explanations: a surge in tourism and a bureaucracy that has layered technology on top of existing systems without solving the queues.
When I first visited Japan half a century ago, I felt I was visiting the future.
I toured a factory where robots were building television sets with hardly a worker in sight. I was told that robots were more expensive than labour – but essential if Japan was to conquer the United States market with superior quality.
They were right.
Today, everything works in Japan, but I sometimes felt I was visiting the past.
In one office I visited, the fax machine was still in use – because of a resistance by customers to change to digital.
I saw few electric cars. I was told it is too difficult to find charging points.
In China, I saw a demonstration of BYD’s new generation of chargers, capable of delivering a full charge in nine minutes, powered in part by stored off-peak electricity. The plan is to roll them out nationwide.
It is hard not to conclude that when China decides to move, it moves at speed.
While I would not bet against Toyota delivering its long-promised solid-state battery, the Japanese car manufacturers are losing to China.
Japan is visibly ageing. Young graduates are so scarce they can choose where they work. Leaving a job after a single day is not uncommon.
In Japan, people queue. Drivers let you merge. You know that what you buy will be what it claims to be.
My Chinese friends told me that middle-class Chinese travel to Japan to shop because they trust the quality.
That trust matters.
On my hotel television in China, there were dozens of channels but no English-language news, beyond RT (formerly Russia Today). Instead, there were many films of the People’s Liberation Army in heroic battle.
In Japan, there was CNN – and no films glorifying war.
The contrast was striking – and disturbing.
China shows that when barriers are removed and infrastructure is enabled, innovation can move quickly. Our Government is right to focus on cutting red tape.
Japan demonstrates the value of social trust. When a society values social trust, it can be preserved.
When I began in law, the senior partner told me our word was our bond. Lawyers tell me that today that is often not the case.
We need to again insist on integrity – in our public institutions, commerce and everyday life. Without trustworthiness, something essential to being a New Zealander is lost.
But the strongest lesson from my trip is the value of freedom.
You do not appreciate the ability to ask what you like and read what you like – until you cannot.
Once lost, it is not easily regained.
We must be vigilant in our defence of freedom.
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