By: Lee

Lee — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:13:59 +0000

I took Manjit Bhatia’s point somewhat and as a Chinese, admit that some things you said are true in China. However, we look it at a long term perspective, China is growing, and Chinese people are growing, especially the youth, in this global economy, help and support China to develop is to help the whole world.

By: Doug Young

Doug Young — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:08:23 +0000

“Wild West Capitalism”? Most likely what the Chinese citizens don’t want, American citizens neither. Capitalism can be could, but Lassieze-fair capitalism(WWC),can be pure evil. Not a darn thing to prevent those capitalists accumulate enough power to walk all over the smaller capitalists, and the consumer. Unfettered WWC is what has, and still does foster communist, and socialist .movements. The collective capitalists better wake up to understand it’s not all about them or an unsustainable high growth rate in profits. Then again I have always had a different read of history than most.

By: Manjit Bhatia

Manjit Bhatia — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:46:33 +0000

If this is Keith Fitz-Gerald’s “analysis” of the Chinese economy, then China’s so-called Communist dictatorship would embrace him with a red carpet and a hug that would have made Soviet Russia’s bear-hugs look like kindergarten play. So he took a stroll around Beijing and saw the glitz and all that jazz. And that’s exactly what China will show — the glitz. Dig deeper and any Sinologist and economist with a critical mind will tell you China has a dark underbelly. And that dark underbelly says plenty about keeping up appearances, the chimera, but has Fitz-Gerald ever tried asking the technocrats, let alone the Communist Party hacks, to show them the real book, the real statistics — not the other book with the fake statistics? No argument that China has been growing exponentially since 1982. No question that China has become a wealthy country, by historical standards, with vast currency reserves, record trade and budget surpluses, and foreign direct investments that makes it the envy of the world. But unmask all of this and you’ll find heavy state interventions in the market, a state that’s always propping up a number of its banks, picking winners in leading sectors and, best of all, without the slightest embarrassment about its serious lack of good governance and policy opacity. Fitz-Gerald will do well, whilst in Beijing, to ask just where the smart money, especially that which belongs to Chinese entrepreneurs, goes. He’ll get no where. And if he’s able to sniff it out, he’ll soon discover that much of it goes where the State wants it to go, and often it goes into State-owned firms or quasi-State firms with joint ventures with foreign firms. And then he should look into the regulatory environment in which the Chinese economy runs and I’m sure he will soon stop putting out such travelogues that, after all, can be easily found in many alleys of blind financial journalism. Here’s a gem by Fitz-Gerald: “Then there’s the media. Recent liberalization of media ownership and usage requirements have created a form of Wild West capitalism that our industries once dreamed about, but now only visit in the museums of their boardroom minutes.” Oh, please … enough already.

Comments on: Despite Rumors to the Contrary, Beijing Economy Continues to Boom

By: Lee

By: Doug Young

By: Manjit Bhatia