Wednesday, January 06, 2010

A Good Piece on China

Christopher Hayes's medium-length article, "The Great Leap," is well worth a look, if you haven't seen it already. (It was published 22 December 2009.) It's a consideration of China's ability to sustain its economic growth, the government's ability to stay in power by keeping the people happy, and the chances for social progress for the bulk of the population.

As Chris makes clear, he had trouble talking to anyone but Party officials for the article, something worth keeping in mind as you're reading. But, as he notes, the elites do have an enormous amount of power in China, and it's not useless to learn a bit about how they see things. Running through, subtly, are some hints of comparison to the path down which the US is traveling.

(h/t: Ross and Reihan, whose Bloggingheads diavlog posted today was considerably less horrible than you might imagine.)

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