The rumor about Zhu's step down last for a while. Zhu likes to copy Greenspan's idea. After his US trip fail to win WTO entry and the embassy incident, Pro-west Zhu's status is weak significantly.( I have feeling that even the possiblity of free election is in Zhu's mind, but may not in his commrades' mind) The privatizing of state enterprises causes the huge unemployment and corruption. On the hand, what can you do for those money losing, ill-equipped companies? When I was in China last year, I know there is recession going on, lot of supply and weak demand. I am very curious where is the 7.8% growth came from. May be government projects keep things up. I think when they start adopt the capitalist economy, they like the Keynesian theories for government intervention and spending more. Now they see the economy boom last so long in US, they start to like Greenspan and shift to "supply-side" ideas. But under Zhu, the pseudo "supply-side" doesn't work very well.(How can supply-side economy use the fix exchange rate? That doesn't sound right.) I am looking forward that they shift back to Keynesism which prove a long-term harmful to the economy in the West.
Also, they used to say that World War II was a major force to push US out of the depression. I bet they are thinking about the Taiwan war, which I think China may not be able to win, as an alternative mean to pool them out of the recession. |
