Move or Else

Move or Else by Ian Johnson explains the large movement of rural residents in China into towns and cities that the country’s government is enforcing. Officials in China want 70% of its 1.4 billion people to live in cities within the next dozen years. The operation will have downsides as well as upsides. The communist government planned this to boost the country’s economy, but it will also cause harm to the people. Details about both the main benefit and negative aspects helped me understand the main idea. The author explains how China’s government wanted to spurt China’s economic strength. “The idea is that more city-dwellers will mean more people spending money, making China’s economy less dependent on exports for growth,” Johnson stated. “Many of China’s farmers are subsistence farmers…with little left to sell. That means they hardly have any money to buy products made in Chinese factories.” I can see the advantages the government sees in urbanization, bringing in a much larger and reliable consumer group to buy Chinese factory items and support the economy.

Johnson also describes another aspect of the movement of the people: how it negatively affects the people kicked off their old homeland. She includes quotes from Wei Dushen, who has been moved to a newly created town called Huaming. “We know how to farm but not how to work in an office,” Dushen says. “Those are for educated people.” So people working on farms were there for a reason, and it’s difficult for those people to make a living in the city. Additionally, rural Chinese culture is being lost. Eighty percent of Chinese traditional songs, dances, rituals, martial arts, and theater come from rural areas. Villages that contain these traditions are being torn down to make cities for new city comers. When these villages disappear, there is no way to get back the lost culture. People not being able to make a living and Chinese culture being lost is a problem and a large downside of this new shift from farming to city life.

By including both the positive and negative effects, the author gets us to consider both sides of the argument of whether or not the forced migration of rural people is the right step to take for China. Making the article balanced allows us to formulate an opinion with solid knowledge about the topic. When articles are strongly centered around one claim, it’s harder for readers to consider the “other side” because they don’t have enough background. The author stays neutral by quoting two migrated people with different opinions of their new life. Dushen doesn’t approve of city life as much because he can’t work in an office. On the other hand, Yang Huashuai found work and appreciated the new opportunity. “It’s survival of the fittest,” he said, “If you don’t work hard, you don’t deserve to make it.” He believes the new lifestyle can be taken advantage of through hard work. The author keeps us well informed on the different angles of the movement so readers can accurately decide which one is better.

In my opinion, the movement to city life and destruction of Chinese farms and villages is not a good move for China. Although it will likely boost China’s economy, that is unnecessary. As stated in the article, China’s economy was second, only behind the United States. Boosting the economy further is not worth destroying Chinese culture. And although many people could find good opportunities in cities, too many others would not be able to. The change would ultimately make the rich richer and the poor poorer due to the decrease in job availability and increase in consumption of factory made items. If I learned about economics and how countries can have successful and happy people, I could imagine other possibilities to make China’s economy more reliant on purchases in the country. It would help if I knew how the middle class affects the way of life in the city and country and if China could reduce the number of subsistence farmers without getting rid of farming altogether.