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HL · January 18, 2014, 01:51 PM

'ssasin, why you give so much truvvle?

Leave igno alone nuh....!!

**Islandman** · January 18, 2014, 02:00 PM

Interesting story.

**Sir X** · January 18, 2014, 03:21 PM

American corporations and millionares have offshore tax havens,so whats new ?

You think democracy or the neo liberal consumerist communist state is going to crash,change of course to tweak that shitstem.

**Islandman** · January 18, 2014, 03:36 PM

That is true, only thing new is that China has more rich people now than when them was straight communist. DWL.

I have to say I rate you titles dem: neo liberal consumerist communist state .

**Sir X** · January 18, 2014, 04:18 PM

No, the Chinese Communist Party Isn't Threatened by Income Inequality

Many Western commentators don’t understand Chinese views on income inequality.

By Sam Sussman
December 22, 2013

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Anyone who gives even a casual glance at popular coverage of Chinese politics knows that commentators love little more than to cite the inevitability that China’s income trends are sure to eventually undermine the political power of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In one of many examples, a recent paper for the Council on Foreign Relations argued that the CCP’s “most pressing” problem is “massive income disparity.” If modernization theorists like Minxin Pei are to be believed, “rising income inequality poses an existential political threat [to the CCP],” because “societies with huge wealth disparities display more symptoms of … political instability.”
Given the grave threat these commentators believe economic inequality poses in China, why didn’t the subject make the list of “seven perils” in the now infamous Document 9, sent by CCP leadership to province and local officials this spring? The memo warns against “infiltration” of foreign ideology and institutions, such as constitutional democracy, universal values, civil society and freedom of the press. That the eight months since Document 9 was released has witnessed increased repression against human rights activists, media outletsforeign and domestic, and dissident academics suggests that the Party genuinely believes the “seven perils” threaten its staying power.
Yet Document 9 made no mention of economic inequality. How can we explain the disconnect between commentators’ anticipation that economic inequality will undermine Chinese social stability, and CCP leaders’ disregard for the threat it ostensibly poses?
Commentators are right to say that Chinese economic inequality is severe. As Deng foreshadowed when he observed that “some people must get rich first,” the reform period has created dramatic economic inequality. Between 1984 and 2002, China’s Gini coefficient nearly doubled, from 0.24 to 0.47. Economic inequality breaks down mostly across the urban-rural divide, and is largely attributable to CCP policy. CCP-created market distortions have artificially inflated urban real estate values, while it remains difficult to purchase land even in post-collectivized rural China. The abolishment of publicly funded university education in the 1990s has meant that it is affluent urbanites who have benefited from the boom in higher education. And in health care and pensions, both market and government options are superior for urban Chinese.
Much anticipation of social instability thus naturally focuses on rural China. Yet systematic studies of political attitudes amongst rural, low-income Chinese reveal a fascinating twist: rural Chinese don’t seem particularly bothered by economic inequality. Based on interviews with 3,267 citizens across rural China, Martin King Whyte (Myth of the Social Volcano: Perceptions of Inequality and Distributive Justice in Contemporary China, Stanford University Press, 2010) argues that “farmers stand out as a group least likely to express critical and fatalistic views”of the Chinese economic system.
How can this be? As it turns out that, when rural Chinese think about their standard of living, they compare it not to coastal China’s nouveau riche, but, instead to their family’s standard of living in the pre-reform period. So while it’s true that low-income rural farmers have not gained as much from the reform period as China’s business class, they gained far more than any other social constituency from escaping the Mao era.
The reform period has created a highly unequal China, but the broad-based gains of the past three decades have inculcated a sense of optimism in Chinese of all class backgrounds. Whyte found that a majority of Chinese attribute inequality mainly to hard work and merit. More Chinese citizens believe that the economic system under which they live is fairer than its counterparts in Japan and both Western and Eastern Europe. Remarkably, only 28 percent of Chinese think that the values of socialism are violated by the inequalities of the reform period. And more Chinese than not believe there is no or little conflict between rich and poor, employers and employees, or urban and rural residents. The Hu-Wen vision of a “harmonious society” has been more successful than those whose views are informed solely by China’s Gini coefficient believe.
Of course, China does not have to choose between the false dichotomy of Maoist-style collectivization or its current inegalitarian economy. CCP policies in taxation, health care, education, pensions, wages and migration can significantly reduce inequality. The policy released by the CCP in February – which aims to lift 50,000,000 Chinese out of poverty by increasing farmers’ incomes and easing rural to urban migration – should be lauded. These reforms have strong economic and moral justifications. But they are not imperative to avert the social unrest predicted too frequently in the Western academic and popular press. Believing otherwise merely muddles the attempts of Chinese activists to combat inequality, while offensively imputing to Chinese citizens views that do not reflect their genuine beliefs.
That Document 9 considers denying the historic contributions of the CCP – but not income inequality – one of the “seven perils” strongly indicates that Party leaders have a far better pulse on their populace than many commentators possess. So long as even the poorest Chinese citizens continue to credit the CCP for the remarkable gains of the reform period, today’s current inegalitarian regime will be preferred to the shared impoverishment of rural Chinese in Maoist generations past.
Sam Sussman’s academic research and political commentary on international relations has been published in the Tufts Journal of International Affairs, the Asia Times, the International Policy Digest, and the Oxford Left Review.
Don’t Take Democracy for Granted in Asia

By Mark Beeson on 12:44 pm January 18, 2014.
Category Commentary, Opinion
Tags: China, democracy

A little less than three decades ago, Francis Fukuyama made a very big name for himself by predicting that liberal democracy would sweep the planet. Simply put, in a world freed of the divisive ideology of the Cold War, in which capitalism reigned triumphant, individuals simply wouldn’t put up with authoritarian governments that tried to curb liberty and individual interests.
It’s easy to be wise after the event, of course, but even at the time, not everyone shared Fukuyama’s optimism. Nations with no history of democratic rule or extant elites with little interest in providing it, were not likely to become democracies easily.
For Fukuyama in particular, this deflating possibility was brought home with particular force by America’s disastrous involvement in Iraq. Not only was there no guarantee of spontaneous democratic transitions, but it was also pretty difficult to impose them, too. But even if the Middle East is (still) an especially difficult case, surely Asia looked more promising? After all, East Asia’s “miraculous” economic development had astounded the world, and one of the big ideas in the social sciences is that there’s a relationship between economic development and political emancipation.
Once living standards reach a certain level, the argument goes, there’s more money to spend on things like education, and people’s ideas and expectations change as a consequence. These days people can also see what’s happening in the rest of the world much more easily, and may judge their own governments unfavorably by comparison. In such an environment, one might be forgiven for thinking that democracy is the only game in town. And yet it is not only the current political crises in countries such as Bangladesh and Thailand that remind us that democracy is far from secure in a number of Asian states. In some parts of Southeast Asia democracy has either yet to arrive (Vietnam, Cambodia, Brunei, Laos and Burma) or is only partially realized.
They certainly have elections in Singapore and Malaysia, for example, but the results are generally a foregone conclusion. As the Trekkies might say, “it’s democracy, Jim, but not as we know it.”
East Asia is such a famously heterogeneous place that there is no simple explanation for democracy’s mixed fortunes in the region. However, my colleague Ben Reilly has persuasively argued that in Southeast Asia’s case, at least, proximity to China might have something to do with it. It is no coincidence, Reilly suggests, that Indonesia and the Philippines are the great hopes for Southeast Asian democracy, while the much closer mainland states like Vietnam and Cambodia have found it hard to escape China’s authoritarian influence.
This thesis may not be a complete explanation of regional political development, but even if it’s only part of the answer it assumes great importance because China is, as they say, on the rise. China’s historical influence over the East Asian region has been immense and is currently being renewed. Its significance as a regional role model is, therefore, especially significant.
The big point to make about China, of course, is that it’s not democratic. Even more importantly, perhaps, there is no sign that it’s about to become so. On the contrary, for all the interest in the possible development of civil society, social media and (some) press freedoms in China, the Chinese Communist Party does not tolerate political opposition and remains firmly at the center of power.
This is not how things were supposed to work — or not according to much Western political theory and historical precedent, at least. In Europe, economic development led inexorably to political transformation, emancipation and pluralism, as a powerful, self-interested capitalist class pushed for power. Many commentators in the West still take to the European experience to be the inevitable — if somewhat delayed — template of history.
They may yet be proved correct, but China’s experience suggests that this is anything but certain. True, there are plenty of capitalists in China now, but they aren’t pushing for political freedom or an overthrow of the status quo. On the contrary, many of China’s most successful entrepreneurs are also members of the CCP — a possibility that both Marx and Mao failed to foresee.
As long as China’s nouveau riche can make money in a stable social environment, they are quite willing to trade off a little political freedom, it seems.
The optimists may yet be proved correct, especially if Indonesia remains democratic and continues to prosper. There is, however, nothing inevitable about this, let alone about China following suit. It is sobering to remember that it took a major economic and subsequent political crisis for Indonesia to break free of its authoritarian past.
One can only speculate on the circumstances that might induce China to embark on something similar. Until it does though, the skeptics’ doubts about the prospects for democratic transition — let alone consolidation — in much of Asia, need to be taken seriously.
The Conversation
Mark Beeson is professor of international politics at Murdoch University in Australia.

**Islandman** · January 18, 2014, 05:01 PM

The prize for successful hub development is great. Singapore, for example, estimates that over 100,000 are employed directly in its various logistics hubs, and that logistics hubs account for about seven per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) and their GDP is 18 times that of Jamaica's.

Not bad for a propped up state! I wonder if dem have any spare props can lend we?

**Assasin** · January 18, 2014, 05:10 PM

Fact is growth over short period benefits the investors more, growth over extend time frame mean more people benefits. However China have so many people that many will not benefit much and no matter what anybody try, you can't get rid of millionaires or you have little or no growth.

The state have to find ways to grow private industry while over time make sure the country on a whole get benefits. You lose all the wealthy over time you will have problems.

**Peter R** · January 18, 2014, 08:21 PM

Is dem man deh a drive up real estate prices in places like Toronto, no other explanation why a two by four (literally) rat-infested house downtown Toronto going for close to a million US!

**Sir X** · January 18, 2014, 08:24 PM

Upper Queens.

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