How the country could grow so rapidly what will happen now that growth is slowing down and the impact of the trade war with the United States but 1st lets take a quick look back at 70 years of economic development. Back in 949 when the communists people so public of china was founded the country was dirt poor poorer than many african nations 70 percent of the population up peasants and day laborers getting by on an income of just 57. 00 per year in a mostly agricultural economy common is possibly the most it owns reforms in the 1950 s. Nationalized industry and distributed land from the wealthy to the countrys poor but those policies let the country into chaos the communist reforms were the main cause for widespread famine that killed millions of people and displaced many more millions more died in a wave of terror and in communist reeducation camps after mouse deaths in 976. 00 chinas next leader things up paying introduced some reforms that opened the economy is policies brought china into the Global Market and resulted in the current form of the countrys communist backed capitalism chinas g. D. P. Rose from 150000 1000000000 in 1988 to more than 14 trillion dollars in 2010 today its the worlds 2nd biggest economic power after the United States lets talk a bit more about this with my colleague Clifford Coonan who is our resident china expert clifford the. Capital per capita g. D. P. In 149. 00 was just 50 roughly 50. 00 today its 10000. 00 thats quite impressive how did that happen it is certainly impressive im in the biggest story of social transformation the world has ever seen weve seen the emergence of this what is now a middle class where there was no middle class before a very very small part has happened has been a process of reform combined with some backward steps as you pointed out in your introduction we had the great leap forward which saw millions die of famine but at the same time it. Has been a gradual process of reform which is led which created the conditions and in some ways its been almost over the past few years with the communist party not getting involved in things and by by allowing what seems to be this Chinese Energy for production and entrepreneurship to flourish and i think thats one of the big contributions talk about this entrepreneurship because you can still call this communist know what the chinese are doing is it this is well its sort of a capitalist dictatorship in a way well i think its definitely communist and if you read if you read the documents handed out at the National Peoples congress in march its always talking about marxism leninism its very much in that language in operational terms though what you do see is is a very very pure form of capitalism at work. But its a question of when the controls are imposed and thats when you really see the communist angle come in because at the moment under xi jinping for example were seeing things that are coming more and more more more focused on him and more and more focus on the party state its very much about gee isnt it its does he how important is he as a person is he making his role bigger than it was before he is i mean hes abolished term limits one thing is we often we always discuss him as president xi jinping but actually in chinese his title is general secretary its the party title and thats the key position in china its the party is the political power is is the main focus so yes its very much she focused right now thank you very much to phone in. Now while china is no longer posting double digit growth here the country has an ambitious Investment Plan for the future the core of its socalled new silk road its an infrastructure and Development Project spanning more than 60 countries it will see beijing building ports Rail Networks power plants and roads across the world enabling the country to tap into export markets and gain access to Important Role materials but is that all or is there more behind chinas plan concerning the belt and Road Initiative a financial correspondent in new york and carter spoke to Sabah Kashmiri professor of Political Science at the peace and war center in orange university. It was the belt and wrote in the city of will that lead to china to become the superpower in the world well thats a really interesting question right and in my book that was just relieved i point out that the belt and road is really a part of chinas 3 step strategy to become a superpower so the 1st step was to get rich right which they did the 2nd step was to make their coastline unapproachable so today its very risky for american aircraft carriers and conflict to get rid of a 1000 kilometers of china and so this is a 3rd step to become the most influential country in the world over the next 2 decades and to connect itself to all these other countries and i might add that the strategy that china is following is not the one that america followed after the 2nd more wall which is to set a basis right to extend its influence china is much more business oriented countries so its a win when it comes to countries and says youll get rich well get krige and it just is a very very exciting and new idea. Join but visit see is the son hes the director of the China Institute so as university in london joins us now from that because its on is it really a win win situation that china is promising. What that we depends on harder to find when when sometimes people jokingly say that when the chinese talk of the wind when it means they win the 1st and then they will eat again now when youre talking about their role in the shape to then you really are looking at different time frame in the short term before that almost of the Chinese Government give out to receiving countries to finance those projects do then it is clear when when the chinese get the contracts they employ workers generate income send them back to china the receiving countries get infrastructures being built but when dozhd loans do you then there is a question of those countries not being able to pay their debt and have to deal with that issue idea the Chinese Government have to break up some of the debt or the Chinese Government will take over some of those projects then are going to look so much like been written. With this problem rather than a sort of china clearly house a Long Term Plan on how to succeed if you know if you have remains to be see that that works but at least it is a plan b. You see any other large economy with a similar plan. No i dont see other countries doing the same turned off and roll mega projects that the Chinese Communist party likes to do i mean you will have for example countries like japan and which is also Massive Development aid cortex but they are very very different that much more. Well base in terms of the way ability and sustainability of the projects think it is the scale and ambitions of the chinese. That is pressed in. Professor steve sun from the source of us a lot of thank you very much. Chinese investors have been on a shopping spree across europe in recent just in some e. U. Countries their boards should sports and germany its just been a few airports and most of these cases its come to the rescue of struggling little left field no chinese interest in another underused airport thats provokes a very different reaction a solitary helicopter buzzes over the runway but theres not much else going on here at lower airport in southwestern germany theres a boeing 747 used for test flights otherwise the skies are empty but because the city of largo has contacts in china investors there learned about the former military airfield the mayor says it has a lot of potential. If you look around the world as there arent many people who are in a position to recognize these benefits and take action as well as provide the financing so sooner or later youre going to have to deal with china but the idea of the chinese taking over the airfield caused a stir in the city of 47000. 00 after all Flight Operations have been kept going at least on a small scale thanks to tunnel Boring Company heaven it likes things the way they are and it isnt alone in rejecting the new plan. Not to snooty if you law doesnt need it the airports doing well it is a good solution with half and connect and other companies on boat we can keep going the way we often now and take our time to see if there are opportunities for investments in this tool and the british and Australian Companies already had big plans to connect with the world but they failed what the chinese solution be any better. Theyve been very bad experiences with chinese investors at other and ports with had our fingers burnt the only word i need to say is hun frankfurt han airport is not a remote region of western germany quite far from frankfurt for years it was a financial burden on the 2 german states that jointly owned it in 2017 chinas h. And a group took it over the result. Of that we have almost doubled our growth in freight and thats something we can be satisfied with but theres not much we can do about macroeconomic developments affliction and. Translation global trade conflicts are causing cargo levels to fall again a glance at the terminal suggests theres little chance of a revival for frankfurt han passenger numbers have fallen by almost half over the past decade even so the airport is still an important employer in the region leaving people there dependent on the chinese back enlarge the airfield has also created numerous jobs but they have nothing to do with air traffic instead its thanks to companies that have located on the former military base. And thats it for me and the Business Team here in berlin before we go though its another look at todays lavish festivities marking 70 years of communist rule in china by. The need to keep. Both for over rights and home the 4th and. Most recently that. The family has at the last dragons this one called the hard for me. To agree books on. Im not going to think that jim well i guess sometimes i am but i stand up and went to them and mistakes deep into the german culture of looking at the stereotype the question if you think the future of the country that i dont. Need to see his pick for his grandmother am. Its all that they know im a joke join me in the agenda and beat up you post. What was life really like for People Living and socialist east germany a new online archive featuring hundreds of hours of film real shot by ordinary People Living under the dictatorship has just gone online and also coming up on arts and culture the dangers of making art under the nazis one of the most celebrated novels written in postwar germany the german buses finally makes it to the big screen. And speaking of german the world famous october fast with at least one big twist this october fest with hundreds of thousands of visitors isnt in germany at all so where is it. 1st off though and summit look at life inside the former east germany a dictatorship that hundreds of people died trying to escape now though almost 30 years after the fall of the berlin wall and initiators of a new project called open memory box say its time to finally start looking at other aspects of east germany too. Personal memories we coated in a country that no longer exists. These home movies capture a sign of the former germany that most outsiders never knew private recordings that are now public thanks to document