Well, Even A Blind Sow...

[Scooter]

It would seem to me, then, that it would make sense to promote the growth of that economic power by encouraging trade with China, rather than trying to isolate it.

[Crackpot]

Jim
That's why they seem to be approaching or at least toying with the idea of a semi democratic model as I suggested. Giving a fair amount of local control to the populace serves both to help weed out local corruption and give the Gov. plausible deniability (which is a major threat to the party) and gives the people a stake in the system. In short they need to deflect the growing problem of corruption on the local level in order to maintain control.

The question is how they can best accomplish local autonomy and give without giving rise to competition (which may happen if they allow a competing party) and eliminate or successfully conceal systemic corruption (arriving form using only party approved candidates)

China is smart enough to take note of the pitfalls their predecessors ran into and to do things differently.

[Gob]

Nothing really to add, except this is a fine discussion folks.

[Gob]

This will cheer you up Jim

US trade gap widens on increased Chinese imports

A slight increase in US exports was outstripped by a rise in imports

The US trade deficit was wider than expected in August, figures have shown, in the wake of record imports from China.

US Commerce Department figures showed the gap between imported and exported goods grew by 8.8% to $46.4bn (£29bn).

Imports from China grew 6.1% in August to a record $35.3bn. The US trade deficit with China also set a new record of $28.0bn.

US exports to China remained essentially unchanged at $7.3bn.

The previous record trade deficit with China was $27.9bn in October 2008.

The US has been pressing China to let the value of the yuan rise against other currencies.

The American government says that Beijing's current policy, which limits the movement of the yuan against the dollar, gives Chinese exporters an unfair competitive advantage.

Overall, US exports edged up a slightly, by 0.2%, but this was overshadowed by a 2.1% increase in imports

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11544677
.

[Andrew D]

... a one party democracy ....

What does that even mean?

[Andrew D]

China is not nearly as well off as its nominal economic statistics suggest.

There are still probably hundreds of millions (accurate figures are impossible to get from the PRC's one-party dictatorship) of peasants who do not live in the booming urban areas (mostly in the coastal or near-coastal east and south). They are essentially peasants, with some of those oddities that have become so common in third-world places -- you live in a corrugated metal hut, you get your drinking water in a bucket from a well, your "sewage system" is a hole in the ground (barely 4% of rural Chinese have flush toilets), and you plow your field with an oxen-driven wooden thing straight out of the middle ages. But your village has an awesome satellite TV dish.

The people running the PRC have no idea what to do with that huge population. But they do remember very well Mao's peasant revolution.

China's environment is in the crapper, and it's only getting worse. Beijing's air quality is among the worst, and may be the worst, of all the cities in the world. Environmental regulation is a sick joke -- lots of happy sounding stuff on paper but no serious attempt at enforcement.

Due to the PRC's on-again-off-again one-child policy and the traditional Chinese preference for male babies, young men greatly outnumber young women. The result has been a breakdown of social order among the young -- violent crimes by young men have been and continue to be spiralling out of control, and there is no sign of change any time soon.

In short, even though China is getting rich in the short term -- thank you, WalMart -- its long-term prospects are dismal. Which makes regime change (at some point, probably not tomorrow) increasingly likely.

[Crackpot]

That would be a democracy where all the candidates are approved by the party.

[Lord Jim]

That would be a democracy where all the candidates are approved by the party.

That sounds a lot like the Iranian system....

In there case they have multiple parties, but the parties require regime approval to operate, and the candidates they field must also be approved by the regime....

It seems a stretch to me to call that a "democracy"....

It seems to that the concept of "one party democracy" as a practical matter is pretty much an oxy moron.

If a sole central authority has complete control over who can run for office, it ain't much of a "democracy"....

[Crackpot]

for that matter neither is having the will of the people filtered through a electoral college. ...or two blindly divided parties for that matter.

In the end it all depends on the execution.

I suspect "the party" is just trying to maintain as much power as they can for the longest possible time. and the way it looks like their planning to keep it is to give the local govt to the people while maintaining federal (and military) control.

[oldr_n_wsr]

China is getting rich in the short term -- thank you, WalMart --

I remember when Wal-Mart used to advertise "Made in America".

[Lord Jim]

I remember when Wal-Mart used to advertise "Made in America".

Now you're really showing your age, oldr....

Another example of how China is marching towards "democracy"....

Talk about a Long March:

After peace prize, China targets winner's friends

By CARA ANNA, Associated Press Writer Cara Anna, Associated Press Writer – 48 mins ago

BEIJING – In the week after Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize for his decades of promoting democratic change in China, dozens of people who openly agreed with his views say they have been detained, roughed up, harassed or kept from leaving their homes.

The latest appears to be a woman who Liu has said should win the prize: Ding Zilin, who has fought for years for China's government to recognize the hundreds killed in the military's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Liu's wife sent out an alert late Thursday that said Ding had "disappeared" and urged people to "pay attention" to her case.

Specially targeted for harassment after Liu won the peace prize are the first group of signers of Charter 08, the demand for greater freedoms that brought Liu an 11-year prison sentence for subversion and that was cited by the Nobel committee.

"I'm so sorry. I have a lot to say, but I don't dare to talk. I've been confronted several times by police already since Liu Xiaobo won the prize," writer Zhao Shiying, who signed Charter 08, said Thursday.

"Anyone who signed the charter" is getting police attention, he said. "I hope you understand this life we lead."

Some received threatening phone calls from police as they prepared to release an open letter late Thursday calling for Liu's release, said Xu Youyu, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who signed and helped prepare the letter. He said more than 120 people, including prominent activists and journalists, had signed.

"We call upon the Chinese authorities to approach Liu Xiaobo's Nobel Prize with realism and reason," the letter says. It also asks police to stop "these illegal actions."

"We thought we had to say something," said Xu, who added that he personally had not been harassed. "The government is still doing the same things."

Beijing-based activist Fan Yafeng said he has been roughed up this week by the police who watch him.

Zhou Duo, a friend of Liu who took part in the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, said state security officers have kept him in his home since the night of Oct. 9, when he was to attend a dinner to celebrate the peace prize.

Dissident author Yu Jie said his bags were searched when he returned Thursday from a trip to the United States, and police told him that he now must have a police escort everywhere he travels.

Beijing police did not immediately respond Friday to a faxed question about the complaints.

China has responded angrily to the award, saying the West was using it to undermine China and calling Liu a criminal. In particular, Beijing has singled out the Norwegian government for its 'erroneous support' of the Nobel Committee's decision, cancelling several meetings with a visiting minister.

On Friday, Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said he had met with Chinese ambassador Tang Guaqiang to emphasize that Norway wants to continue its cooperation with China on a broad range of issues.

"I expressed regret over the reactions we have seen from China over the last week," he said, adding that he told Tang that China "must bear responsibility for its decisions to take actions that affect our relations."

Stoere said he again urged China to release Liu Xiaobo and remove the restrictions on his wife Liu Xia.

Liu Xiaobo, a protester who helped persuade students and other demonstrators to leave Tiananmen Square hours before the military moved in, told his wife he was dedicating the peace prize to the crackdown's "lost souls."

Ding, the activist who founded the group Tiananmen Mothers to fight for the memory of those killed, including her son, had been warned before the peace prize not to give interviews.

Her mobile and land phones in Beijing and the city of Wuxi, where she was last heard from, appeared disconnected Friday.

"The last time I talked to her was Oct. 8 when Liu Xiaobo won the peace prize. We were so happy," Xu Jue, a member of the Tiananmen Mothers, said Friday. "We're really worried she's been taken away. When she was detained before, she would make contact. What if it's worse this time?"

Police in Wuxi on Friday said they would look into Ding's apparent disappearance.

From the moment Liu won the prize, the government sprang into action, having a spokesman condemn the award, erasing online mentions of Liu from and pumping up the propaganda in the state media.

One well-known blogger, Wen Yunchao, said a Twitter-like service run by Sina Corp. was so deluged with messages that extra employees were brought in to help censor them.

Turning up the criticism of Liu and the Nobel committee, propaganda authorities on Thursday launched a coordinated, bitter response.

A pair of official Xinhua News Agency articles, placed prominently on major online portals, attacked the prize as a tool the West is using to undermine China. One linked Liu with the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who is widely unpopular in China because the government has accused him of wanting to split Tibet from China.

"A few people abroad have reacted to the news with joy, frolicking around as though they've taken drugs. One of these people is the Dalai Lama, who won the Peace Prize in 1989," the article said. "What's the underlying link? The Dalai Lama and Liu Xiaobo are the political dolls of Western forces."

While propaganda officials are targeting ordinary Chinese to mold public opinion to the government's line, police have warned activists against trying to use the peace prize as momentum to cause any trouble.

Some say China's official angry response to the peace prize is being repeated during long police interrogations.

"This is Western anti-Chinese forces conspiring to subvert the Chinese government," activist lawyer Pu Zhiqiang said the deputy chief of one Beijing police station told him. Pu was detained on Sunday and emerged Wednesday night.

Official pressure continues on Liu's wife, who remains under house arrest inside her Beijing apartment.

The law firm that represents Liu said Thursday they can't even talk with Liu Xia about the case. Lawyer Mo Shaoping said when he invited her to the law firm to discuss whether to appeal her husband's sentence, Liu Xia said police wouldn't allow it.

The phone was then cut off.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101015/ap_ ... eace_prize

[rubato]

It will be very interesting to see what they do next. Their goals, which are not completely revealed, are generations-long at least. They have taken a very deliberate and patient approach to selectively liberalizing their economy with the results we see now. They have done this over a period of > 20 years and they have at least another generation to go just to modernize the economic side. It is an interesting question whether and to what degree they intend to loosen the centralized control over political decision-making.

The fact that they have successfully demonized the Dalai Lama, even to educated Chinese who live in the US, with only partial control over the media should make us stop and think about just how subtle their understanding of their people's psychology really is.

They are playing the same sort of 'very long game' with Taiwan. As a person who cares about freedom and autonomy I would prefer to see Taiwan remain independant and the Taiwanese people to value that independance but as an observer I have to admit that the trajectory of history is towards a future where the Taiwanese people welcome annexation with the mainland.

Right now I think its equally likely that the Chinese goal is a country with a 'modern' authoritarian government rather than a democracy.

yrs,
rubato

[oldr_n_wsr]

I remember when Wal-Mart used to advertise "Made in America".

Now you're really showing your age, oldr....

Only a year and four months older than you.
one of those few Selective Service "Gap" years where we didn't even have to register

[rubato]

The Chinese Communist leadership played a very long game to get Hong Kong back without firing a shot and with relatively little social unrest.

What is most impressive are all of the things that DIDN'T happen, and because they DIDN'T happen, no one notices them. Which they, wisely, relied upon. There has been no social unrest in Hong Kong. Business has gone back to being the business of Hong Kong with very slight interruption. All of the thousands of children born to HK mothers who flew to SF and LA before birth in the years before the communist takeover so they would have an "anchor" child in the US have not mattered. The real estate market in HK peaked, crashed, and recovered and no one seems to recall it now. A 700 sq ft apartment in HK costs over $1 million US now.

So far I would have to say that they have made up for the historic blunders of Chinese leadership and then some.

yrs,
rubato