From: Ramez Naam (mez@apexnano.com)
Date: Tue Jan 21 2003 - 13:09:13 MST
From: Mike Lorrey [mailto:mlorrey@yahoo.com]
> And hopefully the government there will allow this middle
> class to grow. I have my doubts, since middle classes are the
> greatest threat to despotic regimes, even the benevolent
> ones, and tend to be the engines for growth of democratic
> institutions.
The policy of the Chinese government right now is to provide its
citizens with increasing economic freedom as (among other things) a
distraction from the fact that they have very little political
freedom.
That having been said, I agree with you that China's middle class (and
more broadly its economic growth) are a threat to the current
government. The general argument I see around this is that to promote
a thriving economy China will need to allow the free flow of
information, and the free flow of information always undermines
central governments.
Despite this, the Chinese leadership seem set on pursuing a policy of
greater economic liberalization and reform. When I was there 2 years
ago, the hot topics in the chinese papers were:
a) Admission into the WTO
b) Spinning off state owned enterprises into private companies
c) Eliminating corruption (by imprisoning / executing those found
guilty)
mez
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