Almost 2020: China still in the Stone-Age.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today's article is deep from my heart, the bottom of the ocean, definitely something that is staying ahead of the rest, meaning: all the other 60 articles that have been published so far. Truth to be told, there are - as of now- 9866 followers on my LinkedIn profile alone / and and thousands of folks on other social media platforms that have not been taken into account to.

You would not believe where I am right now, at Beijing Capital Airport and this is actually not a good thing. Just back a few hours ago I was enjoying dinner at the JW Marriott North-East with a good old Chinese friend, a true friend and therefore - also big brother- a person that has been by my side for over 12 years.

Having spent over 12 years in China Mainland, I do - with due respect- consider myself as a person that knows a little bit about the country, most likely not as much as locals, but enough to write this article and to explain the drawbacks of this country.

Truth to be told, I'm an extremely critical person and based on my city of birth, Vienna, I do consider myself as Austrian. Well, yes, there was Falco, Johann Strauss, Beethoven and Adolf Hitler, but there was more than the second world war, there was the first world war, which was also caused by the Austrians. Hard to believe that Austrians definitely like to complain and easily get into a fight, otherwise this whole world War I and World War II would not have been taken place in the first place.

Getting site-tracked, what is the thing about China:

• Today we have got the 9th of July 2019 and we are almost approaching 2020
• Which means, that things are supposed to be better now, especially for such fast-developing country as China, where the world's largest high-speed-railway-network has just been - starting from scratch- built within a turbo speed of less than 3 years, and - in contrast- there is this traditional Great Wall of China.
• But building towers, and infrastructure really shows the world how developed a country really is, or does it just demonstrate that someone is just working on their GDP numbers and to bring some serious cash into the development of a country.
• See, no matter how many thousands of shopping malls, buildings and towers China is building up and how large the growth of their first and second tier cities might be, it has nothing to do with the people. In the end, the people create value to the city, in letting it run / a city without people actively participating into the country's workflow, would be rather a meaningless ghost-town.

Who owns and runs the country?

1. There is always the government on top of the food-chain
2. And who owns that chain?
3. The banks and the airline carriers, they are the top players of a country
4. A country without airports, banks and shipping firms, would be rather a disaster,
5. Goods and people have to be transported all around the country, or even world-wide, across borders.

The biggest issue of China, in comparison to the rest of the world, which includes the economic superpowers:

• In the past decade, or let' say, even more than that, I have seen Beijing without even a metro, without all those airport terminals, and cities such as Shanghai only with 4 subway-lines, where there are today over 20,
• Than there was no high-speed-train and it was rather unethical to take a train between both of those cities and most recently it was possible to reach it within less than 4 hours.
• Nowadays, given the mass-grave-accident of thunder-speed-trains, being hit by lighting, ignoring warning lights of their instruments, collisions, death of hundreds of people, being buried alive just to cover up the losses of lives, and to rather prefer those folks being missing than dead, for the benefit of the city, province and district leaders of their areas of such incidents, the speed has been reduced across the whole China Mainland, which includes the MAGLEV Train that used to take you from Shanghai PVG to the city center in just below 6 minutes, with a top-speed of 430 kph / drilled down to 301 kph on sunny days.
• Maybe there was an actual reason why the Germans did develop this MAGLEV train-concept for over 20 years and still did not consider to implement it into their own city network at all, but than there were the Chinese that insisted in getting this technology put into action.

Let's just put those developments aside:

• We all completely understand, for you as a reader of this article, that politics and covering up mass-grave stories, does not have any affect on you at all. Of course, it's always the others that die and others that have incidents, accidents and political issues, it's always the others and never us, that's for sure.
• So, what is the biggest issue, just for a random tourist or traveler that visits China after-all, "it won't affect a tourist at all", is that what you have thought?
• It kinda does: imagine, you are entering China with the expectation that it is one of the most powerful economic superpowers in the world, and you may believe that it is state of the art / and especially now in 2019, almost 2020, we may already compare it with top-modern-countries such as Japan / or South Korea, sorry to disappoint you, this is not the case. Your expectations might be higher than it is, consider it like watching a movie. When the latest Avenger IV just came out, the whole world has been pre-booking their tickets, the whole world was being brainwashed with their marvelous AIDA marketing strategy, but in fact, the expectation was so extremely high, that it didn't reach that top-line, and almost everyone has left theaters with shaking heads, saying: "I expected it to be different, but it's like all the other movies / it's a typical Avenger Movie". Don't get me wrong here, it has been a great movie and it was definitely touching, still their global branding and sales-point of this particular movie was creating a much high expectation, they just overdid it.
• Now, looking at China, it's basically the same. China Mainland is in the news all day long, across the globe, especially in news and TV agencies that are not even being allowed to be screened in this country, not to mention that it is also -nowadays- in getting the right VPN supplier that would not have been shut down by local authorities already. LinkedIn used to be banned as well, just being grateful that they made it be back in the game, otherwise it would have been extremely difficult to even publish this very article.

Just now, live from Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 2:

• So, we did agree that we are now in 2019 / almost 2020 and that China did a great job in building airports, towers, roads, highways, railway-networks and other public facilities, not to mention that it is still lack of hospitals and public schools, but we will come back to that at a later point, most likely the next article, not this time.
• What is the issue here in China, that - as we are writing- North Korea is opening its gates and at the same time, China is closing up, trying to ensure that North- and South-Korea won't have a too smooth relationship at all, what other choice than to beef up with Mr. Kim and to allow North Koreans to work in China, and the North-East-Chinese to daily just walk over the border and do their job over there, looks to me lake exchange of knowledge and technology.
• There are direct flights from Beijing to Pyongyang, which is great, I'm pretty sure that this direct route is open for a purpose, not like having to divert all flights from Taipei via Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo to China Mainland, great that there are now connection flights that allow all that.

Speaking of Connection Flights / yes, I'm still at Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 2 and it's 01.26am:

• See, just recently there was this 144 hours lay-over-allowance for international passengers to transit with Chinese airline carriers.
• What they have not thought of is quite simple: as soon as it reached midnight, the airport will kick-out all passengers out of the transit-zones and let them move over to the arrival and departure halls, instead, even those folks that have lounge access. So don't just get overexcited to make good use of this 144 hours transit visa, it's definitely not for the benefit of foreigners to reach Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou International airport, it's just for them to let kick you out, so the airport can be cleaned up and they can do their own stuff in there, such as PEST Control, and maintenance.

Did you ask yourself why I'm stuck in Beijing Capital Airport?

• Finally, here comes the key-point, and this is just the most exciting part of this article.
• One of my colleagues just dropped me off at the airport, short before midnight.
• He quickly dropped me, I went to one of those eTicket-stations and printed out my boarding pass and and since I do have lounge access, to the BSG Premiere Lounge, which is open 24 hours a day, as advertised and double-confirmed by their employees, their airport security doesn't let me pass through security before midnight.

• Which is acceptable, but asks me to wait until 4.30am just to enter the 24h airport lounge, to take a rest and do some work. I don't mind sitting in their arrival hall, relying on my Mobile Data (yes, there is no WIFI) / laptop power that is supposed to last for over 6 hours, grateful that there is this Taiwanese brand, called ACER that is building life-saving-laptops / and Japanese mobile phones, such as SONY that allow hot-spot-sharing with other devices!
• A lady from that BSG Lounge did actually pick me up from the security desk, but although she was there to collect me and take me into their airport lounge, there was this Chinese man, that had probably had too many cigarettes today, stunk like a chimney, so I did have to ask him to have a peppermint candy or gum, just to avoid me having to get passive smoke into my lung.
• No solution, I just build my own airport lounge and gladly I did have a well-prepared BRICS traveling kid that has made this journey, that did not even start yet, even more wonderful. It contains the Etihad Airways AQUA DI PARMA Hand Creme, as well as perfume, a toothpaste and brush, the Asian Airlines L'Occitane Hand-Creme, Lip-Balm, and comforting creme, gladly I carry this blue towel with me, just in case of emergencies.
• Basically, an extreme disappointment of the capital of China, not being able to actually handle and airport in a concerned and professional manner, the disappointment of the human nation, and the entire planet: the whole world looks at the world's largest and strongest economic superpower with pride, still seems to be like that AVENGER Movie we did talk about just moments ago.

What's more and why China is still not ready to be considered as developed country:

• Think it through, we are not talking about a second or third-tier city, it's the capital, and the capital of such country seems not be even able to handle an airport
• But this is not all or everything: imagine, as a foreigner you are visiting a country like China, a place where mobile payment applications, WeChat Pay, Ali-Pay, POS machines everywhere and all over the place, filled with international brands such as McDonald's , KFC, Burger King, and Starbucks are almost to be seen on every single corner, international hotel groups, not to mention brands with global brands, that we all have heard of, even if it's Armani, Fendi, Gucci, Folie Folie, IKEA, Prada, Ralph Lauren, Tom Ford, Michael Kors, Miu-Miu, Tommy Hilfiger, or even watch brands such as Breitling, Rolex or IWC, they are all present. Now imagine, that a tourist cannot even purchase any of those items, because international bank cards are almost nowhere being accepted.
• Starbucks as well as IKEA, Marriott / SPG Hotel Groups are open for international credit cards, they all use either Bank of Communications or Bank of China POS Machines, but stepping into a McDonald's or KFC could cause stomachache or hunger, it's for sure that no international credit card can be used.
• Interesting thing is, you can - for sure- can get a room and dine-in, nowadays, take a DIDI Taxi - by linking it with your international credit card and buy groceries at selected stores, purchase a flight ticket, but what you cannot do is: taking a train, metro, bus without having actual cash in your pocket, which is rather ridiculous. When I reached China back in 2005, I believed it all and would just live with it, but 14 years later, almost 15 years, with all of those remarkable developments of cities, expansions and incredible achievements in the construction world, which actually does include "Shanghai Tower" in "Pudong", it still should be possible for a foreigner to travel freely.
• If you would tell me that I am going to visit Bangladesh, Nepal or India, I would completely understand that - most likely - cash is the king, but how can a country such as China compare themselves as a rival to the United States, if it cannot even satisfy the needs of an ordinary tourist, or business traveler.
• What is actually incredible, that loads of member of staff at public facilities such as airports, train stations, shopping malls, etc. are still talking to foreigners in Chinese, expecting that everyone can speak their language. This sounds French to me, but they sad thing is that French people actually can speak English, they don't want to, but here in China Mainland, they basically want to, but arent' able to communicate at all.
• Now, you are watching CNN and BBC, where China is always one of the biggest topic all over the place, showing it's global presence and power, and than a normal tourist cannot even buy chicken nuggets at McDonald's, a Kentucky Fried Chicken and it basically being forced have dinner at Starbucks, and must walk per foot, because nowadays almost all transportation softwares in China are based on local payment systems.
• So, what is it that the government wants: that every foreigner that comes to China must open a local bank account, must go to the bank, take a token and exchange USD, EUR, GBP into their local currencies. Guess what, it will take you over an hour to do so, because there aren't enough bank branches, in comparison to the population of the country.
• Enjoy your stay in China, there are loads of stories you may be sharing with your beloved ones, you never know, you may be able to make a movie out of it, or just start writing a book about China, this economic super-power, or rather, this country that actually is still living in the stone-age.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. 

If there are any questions that may arise in the meantime, please feel so free to contact me directly at (86-21) 6157 4954 or drop me an email to max (at) prscenterprises (dot) com. 

Kind regards from the very city centre of Shanghai, The People’s Republic of China,

Max-Alex Agostini

PRSC APAC Procurement Team a division of People's Republic Sourcing Channel Limited Corp..

Chief Executive Officer 

People's Republic Sourcing Channel Limited (Shanghai, CN)

People's Republic Sourcing Channel Limited (Beijing, CN)

People's Republic Sourcing Channel Limited (Dubai, UAE)