Exporting a model or not?
Naazneen makes impressive points in her post, and in her Democracy article. I think that we agree on many points, but I think I am a bit more reticent than she to decide that China is clearly building an alternative ideological model to the West that it wants to export or whether China, by the way it developed, has built impressive economic growth, and then winds up serving as the example of an alternative model- an example for everyone from real economic reformers (like Vietnam) to thugocrats like Robert Mugabe. Whether or not China is trying to export a model, or is merely serving as a model, is a crux of the debate.
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China owns us. The tax cut for Billionaires enabled them to underwrite and control our currency.
China is doubling up client status for most of the world customers, using our client states as proxies(most notable Saudi Arabia).
June 25, 2007 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
China is actually following the Singapore model, but China is not Singapore. There is a dark, ugly side that gets little press, compared to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for example.
Tibet was briefly a cause de jour for celebs and activists, but it's fallen off the radar. It doesn't change the fact that what China has done and is doing is criminal and blatant ethnic cleansing in Tibet, and denying them access to their religious heritage is abominable. Muslims are treated horribly as well, making China the most blatantly un-Islamic government on the planet. The Islamic world is much too busy bashing America to notice.
June 25, 2007 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink