Thanks for posting the article. It is good to see some focusing on the downside beside just some re-hash of "human rights" & democracy.
However, the "problems" mentioned tend to be either non-problems - like "rising inequality" That matters when income on the bottom can't keep up - that isn't happening all over, farm income is rising, and many urban workers switch jobs for more pay.
This (income inequality) is an academic liberal issue.
"Corruption" - If this is a minor tax on economic activity, it is not to big a problem, especially if it is small and tends to focus on large enterprises. If this STOPS or slows economic activity until huge bribes are paid, it will block or slow economic activity by smaller companies, then that's a problem, and not just a cost of doing business.
My guess is much of this will be ignored until is starts to affect FDI or growth in key industries. Then it will move front and center as a topic.
With China having the technical means to run considerable surviellence of people and communication, I expect they will be able to slow the growth of corruption, if not seriously reduce it.
Crony Capitalism / Personnel selection - this is a big one.
For this to cause problems, you need to appoint incompetent or below average managers, not just pick the third best person because they are party members. Only in very competitve or difficult industries, like software, semiconductors, etc. does the third best get reguarly beaten by the first best person.
China has a long tradition of meritocracy, exams, tests, etc. for government service.
When someone gets a key government job because they were the college roomate of another government official, even though the y have messed up their last job, that's a problem.
See Micheal Brown of FEMA for an example.
At the top level, it appears that China's selection for the very high end is more like the process that picked Chief Justice John Roberts.
China seems to be capable of correcting appointment mistakes, if a bit too slow in responding - See replacement of Tung with Tang in Hong Kong.
Also, I wonder which country they are tallking about -
"The deterioration of the public health infrastructure and education systems will generate social tensions and mass alienation, thus eroding the party’s base of support and increasing its vulnerability to the economic or political shocks that will inevitably come."
On the education side, that sounds like the US. China is expanding educational access and trying to raise university standards at the same time. I don't know enough to comment on the public health situation, but with rising incomes, threats of SARS and bird flu, it is unlikely to be falling apart. |
