Hello Maurice, <<the USA also used to spend quite a bit of time hectoring China about human rights. We don't hear any of that these days>>
... BTW, the USA has once again, won, just as it did the Cold War with Russia! You notice how the US is celebrating its victory with its allies and the Russians ;0)
… and so it all started thus, without fanfare … Hello again Maurice, THIS is important, very important, and points the way to a great money-making opportunity.
More important than ‘what is going on with who told what to whom by what time when something did or didn’t happen somewhere with what was there or not’ that seems to have Washington DC tied in knots most unbecoming of a great power with presumably terrific vision for a new world that looks mystifyingly like the terrifying old one.
By ‘THIS’, I meant an important milestone marking the distance to TeoTwawKi, and the anticipated TPonRr that will soon be.
By THIS, I meant all that could be leveraged by all the clever people who has the smarts and financial backing in a political power distribution process that will be (a) messy, but (b) dynamic, and thus (c) potentially very positive.
stratfor.biz
“SITUATION REPORTS - September 30, 2003
2002 GMT - Chinese President Hu Jintao called for reforms to the socialist system during a Sept. 30 lecture to the Communist Party's central committee political bureau, official media reported. Reforms would include increased citizen participation in political decisions and improvements to the legal system. The Communist Party's Central Committee plans to meet Oct. 11-14 to revise the constitution, including amendments on protecting private property and improving basic human rights.”
I feel vulnerable without my HK/China shares, as I would had I arrived at an Unreal Tournament Game without armour, weapons, extra health pack and invisibility shield, and so wish that we get on quickly with the anticipated October global equity market valuation stomach wash.
Attached please find some earlier posts that enabled you to read ‘next 18 month’s stratfor.com ’ back in December 1st, 2001 :0)
Message 16731205
December 1st, 2001
… <<What do you think of Hu Jintao?>>
Hu Jintao is apparently a well-educated technocrat, acceptable to the spectrum of political factions, an un-megalomaniac, and is a prime driver and ‘owner’ of continued reforms and transformation. He is broadly supported. So I am told.
<<What do the next 10 years hold in store?>>
What hedge words I did not use in the previous long paragraph, I will use in this one. I am guessing. I guess many positive developments in China, although these developments may not be particularly conducive to my wealth preservation / enhancement program, or to my life style, and may in fact cause me to ultimately abandon position in Hong Kong, in due time, after full consideration, careful deliberation, and determined ‘decision-ing’.
I am not a man of strong convictions on most matters, unless the matters impact my family, self or friends. I willingly and mostly gladly abandon position, to survive, and fight another day.
The script being written and followed in China is simple, multi-faceted, cohesive, and straightforward, namely to decentralize and minimize government, and is thus enticing. To reduce governmental functions, and limit retained functions to law-making and enforcement, social security, foreign affairs, defense, and infrastructure construction. Many governmental functions relating to industry and commerce are being spun off to self-regulated industry associations. Bold (measured by tradition and by absolute world class scale) experimentations are being carried out.
Much of education and health services is being privatized, joining the already privatized state-owned enterprises, soon to be joined by more. The government is promoting, by making it all possible, property rights, labour mobility, immigration (to the largest extent that hundreds of thousands of educated and ambitious Diaspora of many generations want to return) and emigration (to the full extent that tens of millions will be accepted elsewhere).
All matters relating to transparency, level-field competition and law will be reformed per WTO requirement. The upper echelons of China are far more enthusiastic about WTO than all other countries believe. WTO will solve problems for China even if temporary pain is induced, I am told.
The scale of pending reform and transformation is awesome even when compared to what has already taken place in the past 20 years, and my guess is that political reform is both a necessary pre-requisite and a consequence of what happens in other spheres and sectors.
<<Does anyone grieve for Mao and the Long March, the great leap backwards, from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs?>>
No. Folks treat Mao as a major historic figure, did good and bad, all controversial, and then died. The ideal of each according to his ability and needs is in some ways more a Confucius gizmo than a Mao widget, or simply a failed western ideal, but is never the less still practiced somewhat within the context of extended family groupings.
… as well as some time critical analysis on what might not be …
Message 19263962
September 2nd, 2003
… (b) There will most likely be no symbolic revaluation of the Yuan vs. USD because there appears to be a power struggle within the Chinese political sphere that is gaining life of own. No one at this juncture can be seen to set off socio-economic instability. The issue on the surface is nothing more than whether Mao’s picture should come off the Tian An Men (Gate of Heavenly Peace) chinavista.com , to be replaced by picture of Sun Yat-sen sunyatsen.hawaii.org .
Below the surface, the issue is status quo vs. more representative rule. The power struggle is between the old guard of the Jiang Ze-ming (ex-communist party chairman, current chairman of Central Military Commission) school and the current front-runner reformers of Hu Jin-tao (current communist party chairman) and Wen Jia-bao (Premier).
I do not know what I am talking about when it comes to Chinese ruling politics. I merely listen to others better positioned, and nod my head in feigned understanding.
Something I do think I know what I am talking about: should the reformers win, buy PRC stocks with abandon and without fear. Should the struggle drag out or drag into the open, stay away from PRC stocks. |
