The Tale of Two Chinas

It’s 6.15am and over loudspeakers across quiet streets of Nanjiecun blares out a sound more familiar during the days of Chairman Mao - a song called The East is Red. As the sun rises, a huge white statue of Chairman Mao - surrounded by four equally huge portraits of Lenin, Marx, Stalin and Engels - become visible in the town’s main square. This the last Maoist collective in China, a little enclave of the past in the socialist market economy that China has now developed. How does their economy work and what is it like to live there? Meanwhile, at 3W Coffee in Beijing’s Silicon Valley district entrepreneurs are queuing up for their early morning burst of caffeine. This is Beijing’s first tech business incubator where you’re catapulted to the China of the 21st Century, with young people pushing the boundaries of the internet to create a very different China to that of Mao 60 years ago.

Image: Maoist Square