The negative side is accentuated by recent political happenings such as the
clumsy handling of the Fang incident when President Bush was visiting, and the
even worse handling of the Hong Kong petition to free Dissidents, which shows
just how little the Chinese Government cares as to what sort of impression
they make abroad. In fact, their immediate reaction to any kind of criticism,
that foreigners are interfering in domestic affairs and should keep their
opinions to themselves, does not bode well for the time when Hong Kung becomes
a Chinese domestic affair. But the real negative lies just in these Chinese
domestic affairs, namely, in the last four years while Hong Kong has been
going from strength to strength and like a locomotive has been pulling the
train which enabled Shenzhen and Canton to start climbing the ladder of
economic success, the greater part of China is now worse off than they were
four years ago.
The argument which is going on in China as to why this has
happened, which appears to be mainly between the Secretary of the Party and
the Prime Minister, concentrates on the merits or otherwise of centralisation
and/or planning which in my view completely misses the point.
What has gone wrong in China has very little to do with whether Provinces or
Cities have more economic freedom and whether the individual is allowed to
give entrepreneurial talents free reign. What has gone wrong is that the
Chinese leadership thought they could use an entrenched nepotistic Cadre
system to reform itself and the country, which didn't work, and the reason can
be summed up in one word: Corruption.
As usual I am rushing in where angels are fearing to tread, and as usual I am
saying something that everybody is thinking, and as usual I will not make
myself very popular by saying it.
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