Ted Koppel begins his Discovery Channel program on China, “The People’s Republic of Capitalism” (out June 2on Blu-ray disc and DVD) in a small Missouri town, at a job fair with factory workers unemployed since their company outsourced everything to China. Koppel shifts to Mexican migrant workers in the cotton fields of North Carolina, whose harvests are shipped to Chinese mills, where cheap goods are manufactured for Wal-Mart and other big box American chains.
Ground zero, however, is a Chinese city few of us have heard of, Chongqing, population 13 million. The place is a microcosm of modern China, with a high rise skyline and shops selling Western luxury goods to a Chinese upper class living from the labor of millions of their countrymen who barely scrape along—a deep pool of cheap labor for foreign and domestic companies.
Well made, with snappy visuals and pacing, “The People’s Republic of Capitalism” is narrated by Koppel in measured tones as he touches on the paradoxes of a capitalist society governed by a Communist dictatorship, an economic rival to the U.S. but also America’s greatest economic partner. With the rise of globalization, the U.S. and China have chained their economies and destinies together, for better or worse.
