China yea china will gain from what's been coming for quite a while now and maybe some can choose to see irony from it and it all depend on the perspective one choose , i see it as a consequence of social evolution .
I can't really argue with that, I'd simply point out that the evolution is largely directed from above following the (partial) adoption of western capitalist principles under Deng.
As such, development in China has become very lopsided, focused as it is on exports, and with the bulk of improvements happening along the coast. Living standards are clearly improving there, but what about the countryside where the bulk of the population lives? Not much has changed there as far as I can tell. According to some, it's actually getting worse as people are forced to migrate to the cities in search of work, and as their land is stolen from them by private interests in collusion with provincial authorities - a situation the central govt. has had difficulty restraining.
The principle flaw I see however, is their approach to banking, which commits the same errors and omissions that led the west into the current crisis. Large concentrations of private capital have emerged, and rather than being directed towards vital projects are engaged in leveraged speculation of the sort recently seen in the west. This can only end badly, as the occupancy and default rates in Shanghai now illustrate.
What's missing are smaller banks (credit unions actually) whose main concern is the borrowing and lending of local capital - keeping the money close to the people and directing it to their immediate benefit - something like what Catherine Fitts advocates. If there's anywhere on earth a Solari Society could take root and prosper it's China, but I see nothing of the sort. Instead, you have a reemergence of the same basic concentrations of wealth and power that lead to their first and second revolutions. For the moment, prosperity is in the cards, at least along the coast, but I wonder if they aren't building a Potemkin village, soon to be torn down by angry peasants and disaffected workers.
ebear
