National Public Radio correspondent Rob Gifford discussed the “complete transformation” of China during a Thursday visit to the University of Central Florida that included a public presentation and a guest appearance on a UCF TV program.

Gifford, NPR’s China correspondent from 1999 to 2005, experienced firsthand the nation’s transformation from communism to socialism as an undergraduate student in the 1980s. Since then, he said, China’s rapid economic growth has continued to drive significant changes.

“Socially, economically and politically, China is just in this amazing time of change,” Gifford said during a taping of the “Global Perspectives” show for UCF TV. The show, hosted by John Bersia, will air in the coming weeks.

After the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, the Chinese government asked residents to stay out of politics. Politics and history weren’t taught in schools, and crises such as the killing of protesters in Tiananmen Square seemed to be “airbrushed out of history.”

While there has been no political reform since then, the country has experienced “massive economic reform,” Gifford said.

China has been one of the world’s leading exporters, and the Chinese people have benefited financially from the growing economy. But Gifford said the economy’s recent decline could spark a need for reform.

“People are prepared to put up with a lot of corruption if their own economic problems are getting better every day,” he said. However, “when the crunch comes, I think China is going to need to start on the road to political reform.”

Gifford, who also is the author of “China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power,” spoke to about 200 students, faculty and community members at UCF’s Student Union. 

Gifford’s book stemmed from his journalistic and personal learning journey from Shanghai to the Kazakh border. He explained that he took the journey away from the well-known economic capital of Shanghai into “China’s frailties.”

One of the few nations that experienced double-digit growth rates in recent years, China has inspired continuous headlines in international media.  Gifford said that while many signs of economic progress are present in China, so are the resulting costs of that progress.

The Chinese Communist Party deserves credit for the economic advances it created for its people, including the fact that “400 million people have been taken out of poverty in the last 30 years,” Gifford said. However, he argued that the human cost, including massive labor rights abuses, oppression, and corrupt government policies, must also be considered.

Gifford explained that not all worker factories were “horrible sweatshops” and that most workers were ecstatic to even have a job. Yet, through personal interactions with citizens in rural China, he reported that clear injustices still pervade. One such alarming account included the story of three men that were infected with HIV because they took part in a government-run blood supply scheme. Due to a lack of hygiene standards, whole villages of people were contaminated in this process. According to Gifford, local officials responsible for this outcome “are just waiting for those people to die and are stopping reporters from getting in there” to avoid negative publicity. 

Asked to give a general impression of the nation, Gifford replies that it is “completely contradictory… completely wonderful and dreadful at the same time.” Throughout his talk, he provided examples of both aspects and focused on what he referred to as “fault lines.” The first “fault line” was the country’s economic over-reliance on factories. The country’s economy greatly depends on the factories’ revenues, and the people depend on those jobs. As the global crisis worsens, the government will need to find alternatives for its income.

Next, he spoke about the sensitive situation in Tibet. Given the choice, it seems that the Tibetan people would not accept to be part of China. He also reported that the “People’s Liberation Army has a very strong presence there, which is the only thing keeping the peace right now.”

Another main point on Gifford’s “fault line” list covers China’s “environmental meltdown.” Addressing this problem and complying with international environmental standards would most likely mean shutting down factories and scaling back the growth rate. Connected with the final “fault line” of over-reliance on resources and raw materials, the Chinese government will face many challenges possibly pointing to a future economic stall.

Yet true to its contradictory nature, China has also produced many promising advancements. Gifford describes China with a strong metaphor: “What used to be a birdcage of communism, in every way down to what you thought, has now become an aviary.” He explained that the Chinese have a lot more space to make choices now. One of the most obvious reflections of this includes the “massive progress Chinese women enjoy in society, compared to Japanese and Korean women.” Furthermore, in its effort to become an “information technology superpower,” even the smallest village enjoys Internet access. However, the “birds” can easily feel the boundaries of the “aviary”, as the government is notorious for its censorship.

What Gifford believes will make for a positive future for the Chinese people is their hope.

“Underlying everything, there is a very strong hope that things are going to get better, in a very ‘American dream’ kind of way,” he said.

The forum was sponsored by the UCF Global Perspectives Office, C.T. and Jean Hsu Fund, UCF China-Taiwan Cross-Strait Program, UCF Political Science Department, UCF LIFE, OCI Associates, UCF School of Communication and the Global Connections Foundation.