?
Justly
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Republics it has the money to pay for trade.
15. So diverse is China it is hard to make sense of where it is going overall. Clearly in the South and along the coast economic reform has long since passed the point of no return. The frantic pace of development has left infrastructural support (energy, housing transport etc) struggling to keep up. In the towns the local authorities know that provided they keep their heads down politically and pay their taxes to Peking they will be left to prosper in peace (oh that Hong Kong would learn the same lesson!). In the surrounding fields the peasants pocket the profits from sales at market prices, supply the abundant local markets and build themselves smart houses. In the wake of the new capitalist industries, including high tech joint ventures, lie the wallowing masses of inefficient overstaffed public industries more concerned to follow current socialist principles and supply comprehensive social services for their employees than to produce for the consumer (like a conglomerate that has lost control of its subsidiaries as one British businessman put to me). Elsewhere there is less wealth but everywhere people are fed and housed, an achievement of which, with the Soviet example before them, the Chinese leadership is jointly proud.
16.
Politically it is hard to see the Communist Party lose, though it may loosen, its grip. We will need to watch closely the next Party congress, now scheduled for the last quarter of next year. How wide spread is the demand for greater democracy it is impossible to judge. Both the Party and the people will have learnt lessons from Tiananmen and a trauma of that sort is unlikely to recur. One interlocutor told me that most people are not interested in democracy (or Communism) and see from the countries around them that it is not necessary to secure economic growth. But they do want respect for their · basic human rights. I do not think that we will see a breaking up of China similar to what has occurred in the Soviet Union. China does not have the same ethnic and cultural centrifugal forces. But I am sure that it will continue to prosper and develop rapidly economically and that the dynamic provincial economies will win increasing de facto
{ Сольміс / autonomy. Therein lies Hong Kong's salvation, opportunities
for British business and a force to be reckoned with in the 21st Century.
17.
On the housekeeping front the Embassy is, as you know poorly housed. In the near future it is quite likely that the new east European democracies will not want to keep their vast diplomatic estates in Peking and we should keep our eyes open for a good deal. In the meantime I should like to see whether the Government Art Collection cannot provide the Ambassador with a better display of British paintings for the present house.
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