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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dayuhan who wrote (26682)	12/7/1998 8:26:00 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

China does not have the same kind of ethnic (language, religious, social) problems Russia has. China has minorities but they are vastly outnumbered by the Han Chinese who make up approx. 90% of the population (93% in 1992) ssec.org

To: Dayuhan who wrote (26682)	12/8/1998 3:20:00 AM
From: nihil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

RE: China compared to USSR Democratization in China is proceeding very slowly, and the authorities deny that democratization is the objective of reform. Clearly economic reform is in full play. The recent attempts to run the PLA out of business have not yet been successful. Corruption is still rampant. Many of the larger state enterprises are hopelessly in debt (much of it to each other -- the huge triangular debt), and few foreign firms can be conned into bailing them out. Yet it is barely possible that these firms can be liquidated while TVE's and private joint ventures and foreign invested enterprises expand. The Chinese people seem to be content to put up with the government as long as the economy appears to prosper, even though a majority do not share appreciably in the prosperity. Differential prosperity in the regions creates terrible tensions. The favored areas (Guangdong, Shanghai, and the Coast and Beijing) are prospering while Beijing seems incapable of providing much help to or imposing much control on the rest of the country. In earlier dynasties, the peripheral areas often broke away as central corruption and weakness caused loss of control. Many observers consider Guangdong as largely independent of Beijing. Sichuan presents massive problems. Neither the CIA nor most of the foreign scholarly community think China will split apart. But cultural differences are considerable. No one likes control from Beijing and most pay as little attention to it as they can get away with. An economic crisis could cause political disaster. The response of the central government would probably be harsh and ruthless. There would be no silken revolution in China.