ISLAMABAD (Urdu Times) Beyond the Macro Numbers: How China’s Modernization Reshapes Everyday Life

Written By Mr. Sufyan Hameed, a Participant of ICSF-HU Fellowship Programme 2026-2027

ISLAMABAD (Urdu Times) When we hear the word China, what comes in our mind? For me, before this article, it was always just big news headlines. Like China’s GDP is growing, China built the biggest bridge, China has bullet trains. That’s it. But when I started researching for this article, I actually tried to think from a different angle. I thought, all these big numbers are fine, but what is happening to the normal people there? Like a normal shopkeeper or a student like me, how is his life changing?

I think the real story is not in the news channels. It is in the small daily life things.

First thing is jobs and money. We know China was very poor just 40 years ago. I asked my father and he said in the 80s China was poorer than Pakistan in some ways. But then they changed everything. They opened factories, they made special economic zones, and they started this big anti-poverty drive. And honestly it worked. Like almost 800 million people came out of poverty. For us it’s just a figure, but if you think about a family, it means everything. Earlier a family was dependent on wheat crop, if rain doesn’t come, no income. Now same family’s son is working in a factory in the city and sending money home every month. That stability changes everything.

But it was not equal. This is important. In the start, all development went to the east side – Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen. The western side villages were still poor. So, the gap between rich city and poor village became very big. I feel China understood this problem late but they did try to fix it. Now they have this new policy called rural revitalization. They are building roads and internet in small villages too. I found this very similar to our country. In Pakistan also, Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi are growing but villages in my side in Abbottabad region or in interior Sindh are still struggling. So, we can learn from this.

Second thing which I personally found very interesting is how digital they are. I saw a YouTube video of a Pakistani student living in China. He showed that even a old man selling boiled eggs on the roadside, he also had a QR code. People don’t carry cash at all. They just use WeChat Pay or Alipay on their phone. At first, I didn’t believe it. But it’s true. For daily life it makes things so easy. You don’t need to go to bank, you don’t need to worry about change. Even my own life here, we still struggle with Easypaisa signals sometimes, but there it is 100% normal.

And their trains – man, their trains are on another level. They have built like 45,000 km of high-speed track. I read one example, Beijing to Shanghai is around 1200 km. Old train used to take a whole day, like 20 hours. Now new bullet train does it in just 4.5 hours. So, imagine, if someone works in one city and his family lives in another city far away, he can meet them every weekend. For us, coming from Abbottabad to Lahore is like a whole day journey. For them, distance is not a big problem now. I think this kind of infrastructure is not just about trains, it actually keeps families close.

Then comes education. This is where I think China played very smartly. They knew they cannot just keep making cheap products forever. So, they spent a lot of money on education. Not just universities, but also technical training centers where they teach how to fix machines, how to code, how to work on new tech. So now their youth is not just doing labor work, they are doing skilled jobs.

But there is a negative side too. And we should talk about it. The competition there is crazy. Students study 12 to 14 hours a day just to get admission in a good university. They have a word “neijuan” which means everyone is working extra hard just to survive in the race. So many young people are facing stress and anxiety. So modernization gave them money and facilities, but it also gave them mental pressure. Nothing is perfect.

If you look at their cities now, they are trying to make them more livable, not just tall. They are making parks, walking areas, better bus systems. And most of government services are on mobile apps. You can pay your light bill, book a doctor, all from phone. Lifestyle is also changing, people care more about health, gym, traveling, online shopping.

So, for Pakistan, what can we learn? I don’t think we can just copy China. We don’t have that much money and our system is totally different. But we can learn the approach. First, they plan for long term. They made a plan for 30 years and they follow it. We in Pakistan change our plan with every new government. Second, they invested in people, not just buildings. And third, when something didn’t work, they changed it quickly.

At the end, what I understood from this whole research is that modernization is not about showing big buildings to the world. Real modernization is when life of a normal person becomes easy. When a small shopkeeper can take payment on phone, when a student can learn a skill and get a good job, when a family can travel easily. That is real success. Numbers look good on TV, but real change is in everyday life.