Wednesday, December 15, 2010

"Control"...

...is a brittle, somewhat fictive thing when it concerns national interests.

The cycle of life continues...just as Cuba has been ruined by totalitarian rule via "freedome fighters", so to has China's idustrial output been appropriated by "communists".

Labels are useless when analyzing these societies. It is a simple matter of power and the means of production. It is a strange truth that China is much closer to the Bourgeoisie/proletariat dichotomy than the U.S., so I guess they follow their philsophical master in at least one respect...

from a Foreign Affairs article outlining some of the "challenges" the Paper Dragon faces:

Increased misappropriation of land, rising income inequality, and corruption are among the most contentious issues for Chinese society. China’s State Development Research Center estimates that from 1996 to 2006, officials and their business cronies illegally seized more than 4,000 square miles of land per year. In that time, 80 million peasants lost their homes. Yu Jianrong, a senior government researcher, has said that land issues represent one of the most serious political crises the CCP faces.
From 1996 to 2006, Chinese officials and their business cronies illegally seized more than 4,000 square miles of land per year. In that time, 80 million peasants lost their home.

China’s wealth gaps have also grown; according to Chinese media, the country’s GINI coefficient, a measure of income inequality, has risen to about 0.47. This level rivals those seen in Latin America, one of the most unequal regions in the world. The reality may be even worse than the data suggest. Wang Xiaolu, the deputy director of the National Economic Research Institute at the China Reform Foundation, estimates that every year about $1.3 trillion in income -- equivalent to 30 percent of China’s GDP -- goes unreported. More than 60 percent of the hidden income belongs to the wealthiest ten percent of China’s population, mostly CCP members and their families. The use of political power to secure inordinate wealth is a source of considerable resentment, and the wealthy are keenly aware of it. They now employ more than two million bodyguards, and the private security industry has grown into a $1.2 billion enterprise since it was established in 2002.

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