China’s
two parliamentary sessions [the National People's Congress and the Chinese
People’s Political Consultative Conference, held annually in Beijing] opened
under heavy military presence because of echoes of the Jasmine Revolution
reverberating in China since Feb. 20. Still, Party and state leaders felt no
restraint in leading the choir of state representatives to bellow People’s
Daily’s slogan: “Happiness is Taking Off this Spring .”
Where
does Chinese people’s happiness come from? [It comes] from the Party leaders’
mouths. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao stated before the conferences that an official's
performance and political achievements should be evaluated by whether the
public is happy.
A
People’s [Daily’s] report proclaimed, “[Making] the public happier” will be the
theme of China’s next five-year plan.
Therefore,
“happiness” has become the media buzzword during the Two Sessions.
“It's all about making people happy these days,” a Chinese government
official from a northern province told The Telegraph. “Happy, happy, happy,
that's the only word that counts at the moment.”
In
2006, independent British think-tank New Economics Foundation (NEF) introduced
the Happy Planet Index (HPI). The index is a function of three major variables:
life expectancy at birth, subjective life satisfaction, and ecological
footprint per capita. Well-established indices such as GDP and the level of
democracy and freedom are not included in the calculation, therefore the NEF
scores are typically lower in more industrialized countries. In the 2006 and
2009 NEF rankings, Central American and Asian countries ranked relatively high,
while the European and North American countries ranked lower. Almost all
African countries were at the bottom of the list.
David
Cameron, Prime Minister of the U.K. announced his intention to gauge the
nation’s happiness using the HPI. Starting from 2011, the U.K.’s Office for
National Statistics will poll British citizens on their subjective wellbeing
four times a year. The plan has been widely taunted.
In
my opinion, this undertaking is both illusory and absurd, most of all because
the definition of happiness is too broad. At present, happiness is just a
subjective feeling; each individual has his or her own unique definition of
happiness.
Since
happiness is an emotion that cannot be quantified or measured, no wonder two
official surveys [about Chinese people’s happiness] conducted before the Two
Sessions came to contradictory conclusions.
One
survey, initiated by National Congress representative Wu Xiaoling, suggests
that 75 percent of respondents regarded themselves as happy. What's comical
about this survey are the two key measurements used, one is related to income,
and the other to the economic development of the respondent’s residential area.
Residents in the central government direct-controlled municipalities [Beijing,
Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing] turned out to be the happiest, followed by
provincial capitals, and those in smaller cities being the least happy.
This
reflects a Chinese-style interpretation of happiness. In Western societies, few
people would tie happiness exclusively to money. The result of this survey also
goes sharply opposite of the U.K.’s HPI since the latter suggests that people
in less economically developed and less modernized regions, such as the Central
America and Vietnam, are the happiest in the world.
Another
survey was conducted online by china.com.cn. Only six percent of the 1,350
respondents considered themselves to be happy, and 36 percent said their lives
have improved in the past five years. Forty percent of respondents believe
happiness is determined by one’s financial status.
The
survey also found that residents of larger cities, or “tier one cities,” are
the least happy, since they are under greater pressure from issues such as high
housing prices and heavy traffic.
The
English report of this survey was published on March 3 on China Daily’s website
under the title: “Only Six Percent Happy, Survey Finds.” It has since been deleted
from the website since it is not in harmony with the theme of the Two Sessions.
China’s
past GDP-reliant measurement system was indeed flawed. In the 1930’s, economist
Simon Kuznets who first developed GDP, warned: “The welfare of a nation can
scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income.”
People
have increasingly realized that GDP cannot gauge people’s social welfare or
environmental consumption or social development indicators such as civil
rights.
