Monday, December 16, 2002

John Derbyshire is sometimes way off the mark but he may have this right. There are two prevailing views of the potential of China. Both may be partially right.
I don't believe China will be a colossus in the foreseeable future; I don't think she will be an angry, disintegrating rogue state, either. The greatest probability, it seems to me, is that China will become a sort of larger version of Mexico during that country's 70 years of one-party rule: self-absorbed, just stable enough to hold together, with huge disparities of income but enough general prosperity to stave off revolution, ruled by a corrupt and incompetent political class.

No comments: