The Failure that is China

[Argus]

In an opnion piece in the Post today, Father Raymond de Souza puts to words a number of the things I've been saying and thinking over the past decade or so. China is so often held up as a collosul success story, yet it really isn't. Life for most of it's people is filled with poverty and hardship. The economic reforms, which so many in the West naively believed would bring about freedom have done nothing of the sort. China is still a brutal dictatorship without any freedoms, awash in corruption, with its citizens at the mercy of thuggish local secret police, miltary and municipal and provincial governments. And it's one child policy is only ten or twenty years away from a looming demographic crisis.

Enticing model? Deng's great reforms have accomplished something very modest. An entirely poor country has developed a sizable aspiring middle class -- no small achievement. But two-thirds of the Chinese population -- a staggering 800 million people -- are still very poor.

The 20th Century's Last Great Failure

[Sir Bandelot]

Right, but how else are we going to get those shirts for $19.99? Or any other thing for sale, in any store, anywhere it seems...

But despite your criticism of China, it's quite apparent that our western governments do not take the same issue.

Empire State Building turns red-yellow for China's 60th

NEW YORK — New York's iconic Empire State Building will light up red and yellow Wednesday in honor of the 60th anniversary of communist China.

The upper sections of the building are regularly illuminated to mark special occasions, ranging from all blue to mark "Old Blue Eyes" Frank Sinatra's death in 1998 to green for the annual Saint Patrick's Day.

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"Economics Trumps Virtue"

[DogOnPorch]

Red China will pollute and overpopulate itself before it achieves the goal of a market economy fueled by a large middle-class. Their clock is ticking. Too bad they're polluting everyone else at the same time.

[M.Dancer]

Right, but how else are we going to get those shirts for $19.99? Or any other thing for sale, in any store, anywhere it seems...

They may not last if China follows the IMF advice.

China and other Asian nations must allow their currencies to appreciate if the global recovery is to be sustained, said Olivier Blanchard, the International Monetary Fund's chief economist

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-b...article1307957/

[jdobbin]

China is so often held up as a collosul success story, yet it really isn't. Life for most of it's people is filled with poverty and hardship. The economic reforms, which so many in the West naively believed would bring about freedom have done nothing of the sort.

There has been economic growth. No doubt about that.

However, we have seen this from dictatorships before. At some point what happens is that economic growth reaches a more mature level and that there is less tolerance for fluctuations that effect have a direct impact on the bulk of the population.

I don't know when China will reach that plateau but looking at the record of southeast Asia and places like Korea and Indonesia could shed some light on what to expect. It may not be pretty though and given China's immense size, it could be dangerous when they do go through those changes.

One thing seems clear and that is the west's ability to influence changes will have to be a measured one.