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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (123225)	1/15/2004 3:34:14 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<by comparison, the Arab world is still in the dark ages of socio-economic development. Sure, they can build factories and manufacturing.. But they lack the political freedom and property rights to take advantage of it, or to grow it internally.> I wonder about China too in that regard. I've spent a couple of weeks in Beijing trying to see what makes the place tick. People seem happy, humming or singing to themselves as they pedal along. A sense of humour is never far from the surface. Even the serious-looking police are up for a smile or nod of the head or chat, while standing to attention all day, which must be really boring. Ironically, although so controlled, it's also very free in some respects. People run the traffic system rather than the traffic system running them. It would seem chaotic to NZ and USA authoritarians, but there's a flow to it which is like music. You have to get in tune with it, then it works really well and is enjoyable. You have to use your head rather than just obey a mindless traffic light. There's plenty of room for improvement in property rights and freedom in China, but the trends are good. The motivations are powerful too - life is tough and incomes low. Mqurice