“世界新罗马”？上海让你瞥见未来
2023-06-10 11:40阅读：
没什么能比上海外滩夜景更能展现现代化中国本质了。黄浦江畔璀璨的西洋经典建筑与江对岸的摩天大厦遥相呼应。时间已近深夜11点，夜空中仍闪耀着上百座建筑散发出的霓虹灯光，彰显着中国惊人的科技和财富。在屋顶星空酒吧中，穿着时尚的企业精英品茗着昂贵的鸡尾酒。任何质疑21世纪将成为中国世纪的人必须先到上海这座激情四射的活力之城来看看。
上海相当于中国的纽约，是古老中国的年轻商业中心，也是作为东西方交融地建设起来的。在上海的所见让我们震惊，先是酒店低调的奢华，绝不逊于甚至超越纽约、巴黎、米兰所能给予的一切。在室外，人流如织的街道整洁无瑕，4天时间里我见到的最严重垃圾问题仅仅是一根烟蒂而已。一切都整洁而安全。
在原法国租界内，再开发工作充满了格调且尊重历史。我们还去了朱家角，看到了我们想象中过去中国的样子，有迷宫一样的街巷、各种商铺、各种雕塑。上海市中心的豫园同样饱含历史，可惜摆姿势拍摄的网红和喇叭里不断播放的音乐有点破坏氛围。
在伦敦，乞讨现象比上海要多。在斯德哥尔摩，犯罪问题比上海更严重。除了少数楼显得有些灰暗外，上海看不到像美国肯尼迪机场外高速公路的破败状况。
我去各地都看到人们举止表现礼貌得体。但也有一些地方让我感觉有些困惑，为什么在顶级酒店上网也不方便？为什么进博物馆一定要刷脸？
我感觉中国人对国家崛起登上世界之巅深感骄傲。我们赴华的时间点正赶上七国集团峰会以及中国—中亚峰会，有中国媒体表示西方发达国家难以掩盖其影响力的下降。
还要多久上海才会变成世界新的罗马，届时将是条条大路通上海？到上海来看看，你或许会瞥见未来的样子。
China's brave new world: With its gleaming
skyscrap
ers and spotless streets, Shanghai is a modern marvel. But there’s
something sinister about the Far East’s answer to New York...
By IVO DAWNAY
Nothing so vividly symbolises modern China than a night out on the
Bund – the sparkling Shanghai waterfront where the imperialist,
British-built hotels, banks and Custom House look out at the
soaring skyscrapers of Pudong across the Huangpu river.
At 10.59pm, the night sky still dances to a spectacular 360-degree
neon light show across 100 buildings, celebrating the startling
technical and financial power of the new China. In opulent rooftop
bars the trendily dressed entrepreneurial glitterati – prime
beneficiaries of socialism with Chinese characteristics – sip
expensive cocktails.
On the dot of 11pm the lights go off, as if a single switch has
been pulled. And the Metro – the world’s largest, naturally –
closes. The authorities have decided that it is bedtime.
Anyone who questions the notion that the 21st Century will be the
century of China (as the 20th was that of the USA) must first visit
this powder-keg city of vibrant, rampant free enterprise.
Shanghai, China’s New York (with Beijing its Washington DC), is the
youthful business capital of a 5,000-year-old culture, built to be
the place where East meets West.
During what the Chinese now describe as ‘the years of humiliation’,
opium-touting British merchants from Jardine Matheson developed
Shanghai as an interface with the ailing Qing dynasty. There, after
two opium wars in the mid-1800s, they consolidated Western power by
creating the International Settlement and French Concession
districts, where local Chinese were treated as second-class
citizens.
Today, after being the world’s most severe Covid lockdown, the city
is opening up again to tourism. Our Virgin Atlantic flight was
filled to the gills and the airline is now operating a daily
service at near capacity.
Our small group was knocked sideways by what we found. It began
with the understated luxury of the Puli Hotel, a sophisticated,
designer sanctuary away from the bustle on the streets, populated
by executives and Chinese digital natives in unstructured linen
suits. A hotel to rival, if not surpass, anything New York, Paris
or Milan can offer.
Outside, the crowded avenues were spotless, the pavements and even
some motorways decorated with borders of blooming flowers, lawn
verges or stands of well-ordered bamboo woods. In four days, the
most litter I saw was a single cigarette butt.
Everything seemed as prinked, clean and safe as a Volvo advert.
Even in the low-rise French Concession district – boulevards shaded
with the sycamores one might find in a French Provencal town,
planted by the old colonialists – redevelopment was tasteful and
respectful of the past. The old Art Deco French club is now a
Japanese-owned hotel. And in Tianzifang, a labyrinth of 1930s brick
workshops has been charmingly refurbished as specialist boutiques,
selling everything from razor-sharp kitchen knives to silk scarves
and high-end teas.
On our second day, we went to Zhujiajiao, once a 400-year-old
‘water-town’, built on a network of canals that feed off the
tributaries to the Yangtze river.
This was the old China of our imaginations – a maze of
willow-pattern streets, merchants’ palaces, magical temples and
tranquil water gardens; full of Zen sculptures, bonzai trees and
languid carp.
Its narrow alleys were thronged by Chinese tourists, browsing shops
selling exotic herbal remedies, unspeakable-looking meats and,
sadly, still chirruping crickets, trapped in tiny bamboo
cages.
We found the same in Shanghai’s Old Town, where 17th Century tea
houses – with dragons on their roofs to ward off demons – hosted
crowds of gawping onlookers.
History was also nearby in the spectacular Yu Gardens, spoiled only
by posing Instagrammers and that plinky-plonky music pumped out
over speakers.
So what’s not to like?
Well, that’s where it becomes complicated. In a curious way, it is
not the presence of things, it’s the absence of them that at first
is a pleasure but then becomes a source of mild anxiety. For modern
China perhaps mostly differs – on the surface, at least – from its
pre-war past in its deep affluence and profound, almost unnatural,
sense of order.
The louche bar girl for which Shanghai was known in the 1930s is
now a remote, untouchable Chanel model. There is more begging in
London. More crime in Stockholm. Apart from the gloomy clusters of
tower blocks on the airport road, there is none of the shabbiness
of JFK’s Van Wyck Expressway. Moreover, the authoritarian gloom
that shows itself in Moscow in the prowling dark-windowed Zils or,
in New York, with the shouty ‘Walk/Don’t Walk!’ street signage, is
largely absent.
There is no obvious officiousness. Good manners are everywhere.
And, yet, something seems amiss. Why, for example, is it so hard to
get on the internet, even in a top hotel? Why must you show facial
ID to enter a museum? And why does every motorway have clusters of
flashing lights that may be speed cameras but also may be something
else?
And why, above all, do I feel a moral obligation not to give the
names of my interviewees?
‘The fact is,’ said one man, ‘the government says they can find
anyone in China in five minutes due to the facial recognition
technology – no one doubts it is true.’
‘Just saying the letters VPN [the high-tech means of dodging
internet eavesdropping] is said to trigger microphones,’ said
another.
One woman told me she was a member of the Chinese Communist Party
but suggested that it was something her parents wanted for her –
equivalent to going to a fancy private school in the UK, a sensible
career move. But another said the process of joining the CCP was
quite arduous, involving away weekends in camps, tests and ideology
lectures.
That’s not to say there is evidence of a groundswell of resistance
to the government. Overwhelmingly, the impression is of pride in
China’s rise to the top of the global pecking order. Conformity and
obedience equal affluence, it seems. That’s the deal and the price
is paid in political rights.
Our visit coincided with the G7 meeting in Japan, described in the
government-run China Daily as wealthy nations failing ‘to conceal
their... declining influence’. Meanwhile, President Xi was
addressing a meeting of the ten Central Asian republics in Astana
where Chinese influence is growing like topsy.
On government TV news, there was a lively discussion to celebrate
the tenth anniversary of the Belt And Road Initiative – China’s
outreach to the developing world. Nothing on Russia, Ukraine or
Taiwan.
How long before Shanghai becomes the world’s new Rome, to which all
roads lead? Visit it and perhaps you will get a glimpse of the
future. But you can be sure of one thing – they will see you
coming.
