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Unfairness of selling low and buying high

By Li Xing (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-12-30 07:50

I may not have picked the best time to visit my sister in New York, as a full-scale blizzard, with hurricane-force winds and something called "thunder snow", hit the East Coast of the United States on Sunday.

The locals seemed to take it all in their stride, but - coming the day after Christmas - the timing couldn't have been worse. Tens of thousands of people were stranded, as thousands of flights were canceled and trains between Boston and New York simply stopped running.

Many people were unable to get to work, which meant that others had to work double- or even triple-time. At my hotel Sunday night, I overheard a concierge say that some taxi drivers were likely to spend the whole night on the road. It will take days for city workers to get the snow off the streets.

However, none of this seems to have dampened the enthusiasm of holiday shoppers. Whether they are local or visitors, it seems few can resist the temptation of the after-Christmas sales, with many shops offering 30- to 60-percent discounts.

Many shoppers were disappointed though, because some shops closed for the day on Monday as not enough staff showed up to work.

Overall, the American retail sector enjoyed a 5.5-percent increase in sales over the same period last year, giving a little boost to the US economy as it heads into the new year.

At home in Beijing, things were more normal. When I called my parents, they complained of severe cold and my father reported this winter's first scattered snowflakes in northern Beijing on Tuesday after months of rainless winter days. The air has been so dry that many of his retired colleagues caught cold, he told me.

Of course, there are no after-Christmas sales in Beijing. But there is a lot of talk about encouraging the Chinese to consume more.

However, economic uncertainty, as well as our well-established tendency to prepare for the worst, has prompted people to save, not spend.

Prices in China have remained relatively high, at least compared to sale prices in the US. I saw a down coat for sale in New York for $77 or about 514 yuan; the same coat would have cost at least 800 yuan in China.

No wonder Chinese citizens living in the US often remark on the high cost of imported merchandise sold in China.

For example, a 118 milliliter container of Haagen-Dazs ice cream sells for $1.49, or just 9 yuan, in the US; the same tub costs between 27 and 35 yuan in China.

Most Chinese don't buy Haagen-Dazs, but all of us have been hit hard by the rise in consumer prices. Premier Wen Jiabao even apologized for rising prices in his recent radio and online chat with Chinese netizens.

For goods we Chinese produce and sell, the prices are ridiculously low. For goods we buy, the prices seem exorbitant. If we are to add the cost of carbon emissions to consumer prices, Chinese people will have to work even harder to improve their standard of living. It all seems a bit out of whack.

I believe this is a global economic disparity that not only China, but also other emerging economies such as India, must be prepared to tackle to ensure that their hard-won economic development is not compromised by greedy global capitalists.

The author is assistant editor-in-chief of China Daily. She could be reached at lixing@chinadaily.com.cn.