In the 1990s, I travelled frequently to China on business for a joint venture. At that time, China was at the beginning of its economic leap forward. Since the late1970s, the country had been promoting a policy of reform and opening up under the leadership of paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. Following the Tiananmen Square incident in June 1989, the rule of the Communist Party was consolidated, and the capitalist transformation of the economy began under the banner of a socialist market economy from 1992 onwards. From the 1990s through to the early 2000s, the Chinese economy surged forward along this path, and its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001 further accelerated economic development. By 2010, China had finally overtaken Japan in terms of economic scale to become the world’s second-largest economy.
My main business destination in China was Nanjing, where the joint venture’s headquarters were located. Nanjing lies almost 300 kilometres upstream from Shanghai, on the banks of the Yangtze River. This ancient capital had previously served as the seat of the Ming dynasty, which began in the 14th century, and of the Republic of China, which was established during the Xinhai Revolution of 1912. However, as the capital of China's easternmost province, Jiangsu, it was also one of the leading centers of the reform and opening-up policy. Furthermore, although Nanjing is regarded as a battleground where a mass massacre was carried out by Japanese forces during the Sino-Japanese War, we did not encounter any anti-Japanese sentiment locally. This included the Jiangsu provincial officials, who were our partners.
At the time, the train journey from Shanghai to Nanjing took just over four hours. Shanghai is one of China’s major cities and a key transport hub, and its station was large and impressive. However, in the early 1990s, groups of child beggars would gather outside. They would all reach out their hands at once to beg for money whenever a foreign traveller approached, which was a common sight. The train to Nanjing was divided into soft-seat and hard-seat carriages. The soft-seat carriages were first class, with cushioned seats. The hard-seat carriages were standard class and had wooden seats only. After four hours of jolting about, one's bottom would start to ache on a wooden seat. So we decided to travel in the soft-seat carriages. There was another difference. In the soft-seat carriages, tea was served. A stern-faced female conductor in a stand-up-collar uniform would casually place a teacup on the wooden bench and pour the tea without so much as a smile.
The train, which had left Shanghai in the afternoon, arrived at Nanjing Station in the evening. It was growing dim outside, and the whole town seemed to be sinking into darkness. Due to power cuts caused by an electricity shortage, there were no streetlights, and buildings and homes were in darkness. Presumably, people were using candles for light. However, hotels catering to foreigners were unaffected, with lights as bright as ever. At that time, China was experiencing a foreign currency shortage, so attracting foreign investment had become the top policy priority. Those Chinese personnel involved in joint ventures appeared to be at the forefront of foreign currency acquisition, enjoying good salaries and other benefits as a result. They were elite white-collar workers in Chinese society, highly motivated and dedicated to their duties. However, some of them appeared to be Communist Party members and occasionally made dogmatic remarks. Nevertheless, both men and women dressed modestly in Western-style clothing and were very courteous.
I once went on a guided tour of the motorway with a local expatriate. He told me that a section of the motorway linking Nanjing and Shanghai had just been completed. We got into a car and joined the carriageway at the entrance. As it was a motorway, I expected it to be busy, but there wasn't a single car in sight. In the distance, a single vehicle that looked like a passenger car was parked, but that was all. I had witnessed a similar scene in Shanghai before. In the early 1990s, I went on a tour after hearing that the leadership, who advocated a socialist market economy, had finally built a stock exchange in Shanghai — a place that could be described as a stronghold of capitalism. However, the area was eerily quiet, with not a soul in sight. I remember wondering at the time, 'Is this really a stock exchange?'
The subsequent economic development was truly remarkable, though. I travelled to China on business every year, and with each passing year, this development became increasingly apparent. The beggars at Shanghai Station had disappeared, streetlights had appeared on the streets of Nanjing and, within a few years, the motorways and stock exchange were busy with cars and people. I think that was around the mid-1990s. That year, I was on a business trip to Nanjing in the middle of summer. As usual, I boarded a soft-seat train from Shanghai. Soon after, the female conductors began serving tea. They moved about the carriage with quiet grace, not in stately uniforms but in fluttering miniskirts.
