As China becomes more prosperous and influenced by the west, so it is becoming rapidly more car conscious. Mark Godfrey reports from a congested Beijing
"Traffic in Beijing will not only be fast moving, it will be a pleasant experience to drive in the city." Even by the ever-optimistic standards of China's official news service, it seemed preposterous. The prediction by a Beijing city planner in the state media in January imagined a clean, green, smiley place in time for the 2008 Olympic games.
Alas, things look very different on any Beijing road on a weekday afternoon. Only 12 per cent of Beijing households own a car, but that still means that two million vehicles jam the city's streets.
Taxis weave and dodge between buses; flash new jeeps edge out trucks, six lines of vehicles stuffed into a space designed for four.
Cyclists have had some of their road space eaten up, and those still braving some of the busier stretches of road have to contend with the exhaust fumes of the growing traffic jams. Two new ring roads circling the city are under construction, while in the sub-terrestrial world, 13 new subway lines are being built.
The Chinese seem keener to drive than to ride a bike. More than 96 million vehicles were trundling along China's roads by the end of 2003.
With a rise in car numbers comes the rise in accident rates. China topped the world in road accidents since cars became affordable and available to locals in the late 1980s. Traffic administrators last year dealt with over half a million road accidents which killed over 100,000 people.
That's a 13.7 drop on the previous year, according to Wang Jinbiao, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Public Security, but the outbreak of SARS might have helped to reduce the figures.
Chairman Mao had banned private car ownership and kept inter-city movement to a minimum with a rigid household registration system.
Today, rising incomes, plummeting new car prices and new motorways have changed everything, though only some can afford the new mobility.
Last year China overtook France to become the world's fourth largest car builder. Car output in 2003 exceeded six million, putting China in line to become one of the world's top three car producers by 2010. Car building is one of the Chinese economy's five most valuable industries in terms of sales and Communist party planners have excitedly suggested the industry could become the economy's largest growth engine.
Statistics support the claim - if China matched the world average of one car to eight people, 150 million private cars would be driving on China's roads, 15 times the current figure.
With the growth comes a rash of state- and privately-owned car makers. Last year was the 50th birthday of the pride of China's auto industry, the state giant First Auto Works (FAW). Compared to FAW, Chery is a relative newcomer.
Opened in 1997 and based in Ahui province near Shanghai, the company last year entered into a deal with Iranian automaker SKT to build a factory in northeastern Iran for 30,000 cars a year. Chery is also in talks with companies in Bangladesh and Vietnam to build factories producing low-price kit-box cars.
The Geely group from neighbouring Zhejiang province produces 48,000 of its Haoqing and Merrie saloon models every year.Started in 1986, the group has recently found itself in hot water after Japanese car maker Toyota took it to court for allegedly copying its logo. Toyota lost the case in Beijing but is considering appeals and several other car makers have mulled legal challenges to patent and technology piracy by Chinese automakers.
However, the rush to a fast profit could be spoiled by a hangover. China's auto industry will probably hit over-supply in the next two years as significant new capacity comes on stream and imports increase. FAW announced late last year that it will double its annual output to two million vehicles over the next five to eight years.
General Motors plans to build Cadillacs at its Shanghai factories next year while Volkswagen, China's biggest foreign automaker, is investing $6.8 billion (about €8.5 billion) over the next five years to expand its plants here. Japanese giants Toyota, Nissan, and Honda have all established joint ventures with Chinese partners. Sino-foreign joint ventures like those of General Motors and Volkswagen's two Chinese partnerships, control over 80 per cent of the market, compared to 4.4 per cent held by companies like Chery.
China's second largest car maker. Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (SAIC) is the joint venture partner of German giant Volkswagen, and produces the ubiquitously popular Santana and Jetta models, Volkswagen's only models in China before it introduced the Polo more recently.
While multinationals may find it hard to make money amid the glut of production, small operations may also find it hard to stick the pace. "Small domestic car makers lack sustainable technical innovation," says Meng Sizong, deputy secretary-general of the China Automotive Engineers Society. They have an advantage, however, in low labour costs, plentiful spare parts and local political protection explains Meng.
Government planners have been trying to protect local car makers even as China's World Trade Organistaion (WTO) membership commitments have cut tariffs and improved choice and price for local car buyers.
The State Development and Reform Commission has spent the past year developing new policy to steer domestic vehicle manufacturing. A recent draft of new policy stipulates that vehicles made by patent-holding Chinese firms should account for more than 50 per cent of vehicle sales by 2010.
Competitive local car makers couldn't expand, while poorly managed companies were allowed survive by provincial governors. Car buyers were kept away by high prices and poor choice.
Soaring pollution levels and traffic congestion have cast a shadow over the whole car scene. Inefficient public transportation systems and bad layout of roads are both clogging up Chinese cities. "Transportation infrastructure and auto growth are mutually dependent," says Li Yang, editor of Auto Fan Magazine. "Better infrastructure should be a pre-condition for any would-be car buyer but it's a Catch-22 situation because the need to improve infrastructure is often based on the fast growth of the auto sector."
Beijing's broad boulevards are now choked with a rush hour that extends from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., with few plans other than new roads in sight to alleviate the situation. A chronic shortage of parking spaces is adding to the gridlock. In an effort to keep the mess flowing perhaps, Kentucky Fried Chicken opened its first drive-in fast food outlet recently. Business is booming.