Posts Tagged CHONGQING

China’s economic crisis – The Washington Post

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in China, Economy on May 24, 2012


Fareed Zakaria

Fareed Zakaria

Opinion Writer

By Fareed Zakaria, Published: May 23

There has been much speculation about power struggles in China in the wake of the ouster of Bo Xilai, the powerful Communist Party boss of Chongqing who used populism, money and intrigue to rise to the top. Had he not been brought down this year — by a series of mistakes, revelations and bad luck — Bo might have rattled the technocratic-authoritarian system running the country. China might well survive its political crisis, but it faces a more immediate challenge: an economic crisis.

Every year for two decades, experts have told me that China’s economy was set to crash, felled by huge imbalances and policy errors. They would point to non-performing loans, bad banks, inefficient state-owned enterprises and real estate bubbles. Somehow, none of these has derailed China’s growth, which has averaged an astonishing 9.5 percent annually for three decades.

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Ruchir Sharma, who runs Morgan Stanley’s Emerging Markets Fund, makes a different and more persuasive case in his new book, “Breakout Nations,” pointing not to China’s failures but to its successes: “China is on the verge of a natural slowdown that will change the global balance of power, from finance to politics, and take the wind out of many economies that are riding in its draft.” Evidence is accumulating to support his view.

China’s growth looks remarkable. But it isn’t unprecedented. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan all grew close to 9 percent annually for about two decades and then started to slow. Many think that China’s fate will be like that of Japan, which crashed and slowed down in the 1990s and has yet to boom again. But the more realistic scenario is Japan in the 1970s, when the original Asian tiger’s growth slowed from 9 percent to about 6 percent. Korea and Taiwan followed similar trajectories.

What caused these slowdowns? Success. In each case, the economy had produced a middle-income level. It becomes much more difficult to grow at a breakneck pace when you have a large economy and a middle-class society.

Sharma does the math: “In 1998, for China to grow its $1 trillion economy by 10 percent, it had to expand its economic activities by $100 billion and consume only 10 percent of the world’s industrial commodities — the raw materials that include everything from oil to copper and steel. In 2011, to grow its $5 trillion economy that fast, it needed to expand by $550 billion a year and suck in more than 30 percent of global commodity production.”

All the factors that pushed China forward have begun to wither. China became anurbanized country last year, with a majority of its people living in cities. The rate of urban migration has slowed to 5 million a year. This means that soon the famous “surplus labor pool” will be exhausted. This decade, only 5 million people will join China’s core workforce, down dramatically from 90 million in the previous decade. And thanks to the one-child policy, there are few Chinese to take the place of retiring workers.

Sharma’s picture is largely shared by the Chinese government. For years the leadership in Beijing has been preparing for a slowdown. Premier Wen Jiabao argued in 2008 that China’s economy was “unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable.” He sounded a similar note this week, calling for government measures to stimulate the economy.

In some ways, China still has a lot of gunpowder in its arsenal. Its central bank can lower interest rates and the government can spend money. But even its firepower has limits. Sharma argues that on paper China’s debt to gross domestic product is a modest 30 percent but that when you add up the debt of Chinese corporations, many of which are government-owned, the numbers look alarming. The government will spend more on infrastructure but will get diminishing returns for these investments. Chinese consumers are spending more but — in a country with no safety nets and an aging population — saving rates will remain high.

Sharma predicts trouble for countries that have been buoyed by a booming China — from Australia to Brazil — as its demand for raw materials drops. He even predicts a decline in oil prices, which, coming on top of the shale boom, should worry oil-producing states everywhere.

As for China, Sharma suggests that 6 percent growth should not worry the Chinese; these would be enviable rates for anyone else. The country is richer, so slower growth is more acceptable. But China’s authoritarian regime legitimizes itself by delivering high-octane growth. If that fades, China’s economic problems might turn into political ones.

 China’s economic crisis – The Washington Post.

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In China, Fear at the Top – NYTimes.com

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Opinion, Perspective on May 21, 2012


In China, Fear at the Top

By RODERICK MacFARQUHAR

Published: May 20, 2012

 

IN the heyday of the Soviet era, Communist leaders were described by the dissident Yugoslav theorist Milovan Djilas as the “New Class,” whose power lay not in ownership of wealth but in control of it: all the property of the state was at their beck and call. There was the apocryphal but appropriate story of Brezhnev’s showing his humble mother around his historic office, his magnificent collection of foreign luxury cars and his palatial dacha with its superb meals, and asking for her impressions — to which she replied: “It’s wonderful, Leonid, but what happens if the Bolsheviks come back?”

Doug Chayka

But if even a fraction of the stories about the wealth and lifestyles of China’s “princelings” — the descendants of Mao’s revolutionary generation — are to be believed, China’s New Class wants not only control, but also ownership. Few of China’s netizens are likely to believe that Bo Xilai, the Politburo member and party boss of the mega-city of Chongqing who was ousted in March on corruption charges, was an aberration.

Why has ownership of wealth become so important for the Chinese elite? And why have so many Chinese leaders sent their children abroad for education? One answer surely is that they lack confidence about China’s future.

This may seem strange, given that the Chinese have propelled their country into the top ranks of global economic powerhouses over the past 30 years. There are those who predict a hard landing for an overheated economy — where growth has already slowed — but the acquisition of wealth is better understood not just as an economic cushion, or as pure greed, but as a political hedge.

China’s Communist leaders cling to Deng Xiaoping’s belief that their continuance in power will depend on economic progress. But even in China, a mandate based on competence can crumble in hard times. So globalizing one’s assets — transferring money and educating one’s children overseas — makes sense as a hedge against risk. (At least $120 billion has been illegally transferred abroad since the mid-1990s, according to one official estimate.)

Mao and his colleagues had a self-confidence born of many factors: triumph in civil war; a well-organized party apparatus; a Marxist-Leninist ideological framework, the road map to a socialist future; and the bulwark of the victorious People’s Liberation Army. Today, more than 60 years after the civil war, only the P.L.A. looks somewhat the same, and the self-confidence is fraying.

The denunciations of party leaders and officials by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution undermined the party’s authority and legitimacy. The party’s insecurity was accentuated by Deng’s rejection (in practice) of Marxism-Leninism. The cloak of ideological legitimacy was abandoned in the race for growth.

Today, the party’s 80 million members are still powerful, but most join the party for career advancement, not idealism. Every day, there are some 500 protests, demonstrations or riots against corrupt or dictatorial local party authorities, often put down by force. The harsh treatment that prompted the blind human-rights advocate Chen Guangcheng to seek American protection is only one of the most notorious cases. The volatile society unleashed against the state by Mao almost 50 years ago bubbles like a caldron. Stories about the wealth amassed by relatives of party leaders like Mr. Bo, who have used their family connections to take control of vast sectors of the economy, will persuade even loyal citizens that the rot reaches to the very top.

The Bo affair is not just about massive corruption but also succession. Mr. Bo had developed a high-profile “Chongqing model” characterized by crime busting, Maoist singalongs, cheap housing and other welfare provisions. It was a populist, and popular, attempt by a charismatic “princeling,” son of a revolutionary hero, to assert his natural right to ascend to the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee at the 18th Chinese Communist Party Congress later this year. Among the rumors circulating in China is that, once on the committee, Mr. Bo would have tried to replace the party’s incoming general secretary and president agreed to by the outgoing leadership: Xi Jinping.

Mao, who died in 1976, hand-picked his successor. Deng, who died in 1997, blessed Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao to follow him. Mr. Hu, not being a revolutionary hero like Mao or the godfather of economic reform like Deng, did not have the prestige to appoint his successor. The low-key Mr. Xi, a princeling like Mr. Bo, emerged as a result of jostling behind closed doors. Lacking institutional legitimacy and a laying of hands by an elder, he might have looked an easy target to an ambitious Mr. Bo.

In the months ahead, party leaders will use every propaganda tool to dissipate the damage inflicted on leadership unity, party discipline and national “harmony” by the Bo debacle. They might divert criticism from Bo by depicting his allegedly murderous wife as China’s Lady Macbeth. But members of China’s New Class will still worry that the revelations about elite corruption have exposed them to the danger of the Bolsheviks coming back.

 In China, Fear at the Top – NYTimes.com.

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Bo Xilai’s Fall in China Put Allies in Peril – NYTimes.com

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Politics on May 21, 2012


Leader’s Fall in China Put Allies in Peril

Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

The Nanshan Lijing Resort in Chongqing, China, where the body of Neil Heywood was found. He was a British businessman with ties to the family of Bo Xilai, whose wife has been tied to Mr. Heywood’s killing.

 

By EDWARD WONG and JONATHAN ANSFIELD

Published: May 20, 2012

 

CHONGQING, China — Early this year, as a crisis unfolded in the chambers of power here, three men flew into this fog-wreathed riverside metropolis within a day or two of one another. They were members of the inner court of Bo Xilai, the Communist Party aristocrat who ran the city, and they had come to repair a rupture between the strong-willed Mr. Bo and his equally driven police chief.

Liu Jin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Bo Xilai

Associated Press

Wang Lijun, who as police chief of Chongqing confronted Mr. Bo with evidence implicating his wife in the killing.

The New York Times

Chongqing is a fast-growing municipality of 31 million.

China Daily/Reuters

Xu Ming, a wealthy businessman and friend of Mr. Bo’s.

Just days earlier, on Jan. 28, the police chief, Wang Lijun, had pressed Mr. Bo over evidence tying Mr. Bo’s wife to the death last fall of a British businessman, prompting Mr. Bo to punch Mr. Wang in the face, Mr. Wang later recounted to others. The three men — two of them powerful businessmen and the other a former intelligence agent — had befriended Mr. Bo and Mr. Wang years ago. They knew both to be controlling and impulsive, and their goal was to broker a peace.

The most famous of the three, Xu Ming, 41, listed by Forbes as China’s eighth-richest person in 2005, had flown in on his private jet. He and the others held separate meetings with Mr. Bo and Mr. Wang. The damage was irreparable. The former intelligence agent, Yu Junshi, rushed home and stuffed a bag with 1.2 million renminbi, or nearly $200,000, to take to a bank with Ma Biao, the other businessman, known for his girth. Then all three fled to Australia within days, fearful of the fallout from a possible investigation of Mr. Bo.

Those figures are now being detained as central suspects or witnesses in the Chinese government’s broad investigation into Mr. Bo’s use of power. His fall from the party’s top echelons has opened a window on how some of his closest allies from his years as a rising official in northeast China became entwined in the social and economic fabric of Chongqing, a fast-growing western municipality of 31 million that Mr. Bo governed for four years. The accounts about those allies, which raise questions about Mr. Bo’s relations with tycoons, are based primarily on interviews with six people associated with the circle, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of facing official scrutiny, and a review of financial documents and company Web sites. Together, they reveal the workings of the shadowy court of one of China’s leaders, and of the panic that set in when these ambitious figures realized their world was about to collapse.

“These are powerful men with their own style,” said one person who has met with Mr. Yu. “It was all very strange, very abnormal, the way they acted at that time.”

On Feb. 6, Mr. Wang drove to the American Consulate in Chengdu and told diplomats about what he said was the murder of the Briton, Neil Heywood, which set in motion one of China’s biggest political scandals in decades: Mr. Bo has been removed from his posts, his allies are under scrutiny and his wife is a suspect in the killing.

The three men who fled to Australia have been held for two months. They left after Mr. Wang’s consulate visit, but returned to China in about 10 days on Mr. Xu’s private jet, thinking that Mr. Bo had avoided serious trouble. They were picked up by the police around the time that Mr. Bo was removed as party chief of Chongqing on March 15, according to several people who knew the men or their friends and families. One with security contacts said almost 60 people had been detained.

All three had much to lose. Mr. Xu, the billionaire, and Mr. Ma, the businessman, in particular had become involved in land deals here, and feared being brought down if Mr. Bo was investigated for corruption, their associates said.

The men could not be reached for comment, and employees at companies where they serve as executives declined to answer questions.

The first to appear on the scene in Chongqing was Mr. Yu, a fixer for the Bo family. He moved here before Mr. Bo arrived in December 2007 for his posting as party chief. Mr. Bo had sent him to gather information and build relations, according to people who have met Mr. Yu, a former intelligence officer for the People’s Liberation Army. Mr. Yu had been posted to Bangkok in the 1990s, but an agent in his network defected, and the members of his group were recalled and punished.

After Mr. Yu left the intelligence service, he returned to his hometown, Dalian, where Mr. Bo was mayor and Mr. Xu was building up his companies. Mr. Yu was investigated by the police over his business activities, and he enlisted the help of Gu Kailai, a lawyer married to Mr. Bo. He soon became friends with Mr. Bo; Mr. Xu, the billionaire; Mr. Ma, the businessman; and Mr. Wang, who was a police officer in the surrounding province of Liaoning, said people familiar with this history.

“Bo Xilai is fascinated by spies, so he likes to make friends with intelligence agents,” said Yang Haipeng, an investigative journalist in Shanghai.

In a microblog post on April 24, Mr. Yang wrote that Mr. Yu was an ex-spy turned “henchman” for the Bo family who had been detained in March. Censors deleted Mr. Yang’s microblog account, and security officials asked him for his source.

Mr. Yu, well read and well mannered, moved in rarefied circles in Chongqing and kept a low profile. He was thrust into the spotlight only once, when two dogs he kept at a home in Olympic Garden Villas, a German shepherd and a pit bull terrier, bit a man to death last July, said one person who has visited Mr. Yu at the home. Mr. Wang, the police chief, persuaded Mr. Yu to put the dogs to sleep. “A dog that has caused so much trouble for you will make trouble again; it will jinx your future,” Mr. Yu recalled Mr. Wang saying, according to the person. The episode was reported in The Chongqing Evening News. Mr. Yu told the reporter he worked in the financial industry.

Business executives seeking to curry favor with Mr. Bo and Mr. Wang sometimes approached Mr. Yu. In 2009, Mr. Bo and Mr. Wang started a crackdown on criminal gangs that was also an offensive against private entrepreneurs and Mr. Bo’s enemies. Fearful of being unfairly ensnared in the crackdown, Yin Mingshan, the founder of Lifan Group, a motorcycle company, arranged a banquet with Mr. Yu, said two friends of the banquet’s organizer. “All the bosses needed protection,” one of them said. Representatives of the company did not answer calls seeking comment.

Right after the campaign began, Mr. Xu and Mr. Ma started real estate projects in Chongqing through a complex web of companies. “Bo Xilai would always give Xu Ming advantages in doing business,” said one person.

In the 1990s, Mr. Xu built up his main conglomerate, Dalian Shide, whose holdings range from home appliances to finance to building materials, by winning contracts from local officials, including a lucrative deal to provide window frames while Mr. Bo was mayor of Dalian. Mr. Xu also received generous loans from state banks, including from China Guangfa Bank, where Mr. Ma was a branch chief.

Mr. Ma left the bank years ago and started an insurance company. After Mr. Bo arrived in Chongqing, Mr. Ma and Mr. Xu set up several companies to develop Chongqing real estate, according to financial records and information from government and company Web sites. Mr. Xu and Mr. Ma have roles in at least three companies founded in 2009: Chongqing Heshengyu Real Estate Development, Chongqing Shenghe Construction and Guanghua Huihuang.

Mr. Xu found ways to keep himself veiled. He sometimes used a Hong Kong company, Golden International Investment, to invest in local companies. Records in Hong Kong list Mr. Xu and three other Dalian Shide executives as the directors of Golden in 2003.

The companies bought at least 123 acres of land in Chongqing, according to Chinese news media reports. Mr. Xu and Mr. Ma often met their allies discreetly in hotels. One sweltering night last summer, Mr. Ma walked with Mr. Yu, the former spy, into the lobby of the Nanshan Lijing Resort, set in misty hills on the city’s outskirts. Mr. Wang, the police chief, greeted them there in a respectful manner, and they dined with Mr. Xu, said one witness.

The resort was known as a rendezvous point for people close to Mr. Bo, and Mr. Heywood’s body was found in a villa there on Nov. 15. Police investigators determined that Mr. Heywood had been poisoned, and suspected Mr. Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, was involved.

Tensions built between Mr. Bo and Mr. Wang, the police chief, and things fell apart after they had their explosive meeting on Jan. 28. Mr. Xu beseeched Mr. Yu to fly to Chongqing from Beijing. On Jan. 31, Mr. Yu met with Mr. Wang for an entire night in Mr. Wang’s suite at police headquarters. The next day, his driver switched cars; picked up Mr. Ma, the businessman, at the airport; and drove him and Mr. Yu to the Foggy City Hotel, where Mr. Bo sometimes dined and held meetings. Mr. Ma met with Mr. Bo while Mr. Yu waited in the lobby. “When Ma Biao came out, his face looked ashen,” said a friend of Mr. Yu’s.

On Feb. 2, the two made their run to the bank. Mr. Yu told Mr. Ma to take the bag of cash inside by himself so the two would avoid being recorded together on security cameras. Then they flew out of Chongqing. That day, the local government announced that Mr. Wang had been removed from his police chief job.

Mr. Xu flew in on Feb. 3 and met with Mr. Bo. Within a week, he and the other two left for Hong Kong from northern China, and proceeded to Australia. “We thought they weren’t coming back,” one person familiar with them said.

But they returned. Then on March 14, as word quietly spread of Mr. Bo’s purge, Mr. Yu realized that he and his cohorts would be detained. He told his wife and son to go for a stroll that evening outside their Beijing home, so they would not witness the arrival of the police, his wife told a friend. But the police did not arrive until later that night, and the family watched as Mr. Yu was led away.

Edward Wong reported from Chongqing, and Jonathan Ansfield from Beijing. Ian Johnson contributed reporting from Beijing. Shi Da and Mia Li contributed research from Beijing, and Hilda Wang contributed research from Hong Kong.

 Bo Xilai’s Fall in China Put Allies in Peril – NYTimes.com.

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China’s Unique Economic Model Gets New Scrutiny – NYTimes.com

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Economy, Politics on May 11, 2012


China’s Growth Slows, and Its Political Model Shows Limits

Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

Central Chongqing this month. The city has grown fast, fueled by infrastructure projects led by its now-ousted leader, Bo Xilai.

 
By EDWARD WONG
Published: May 10, 2012

 

CHONGQING, China — After the economies of Western nations imploded in late 2008, Chinese leaders began boasting of their nation’s supremacy. Talk spread, not only in China but also across the West, of the advantages of the so-called China model — a vaguely defined combination of authoritarian politics and state-driven capitalism — that was to be the guiding light for this century.

But now, with the recent political upheavals, and a growing number of influential voices demanding a resurrection of freer economic policies, it appears that the sense of triumphalism was, at best, premature, and perhaps seriously misguided. Chinese leaders are grappling with a range of uncertainties, from the once-a-decade leadership transition this year that has been marred by a seismic political scandal, to a slowdown of growth in an economy in which deeply entrenched state-owned enterprises and their political patrons have hobbled market forces and private entrepreneurship.

“Many economic problems that we face are actually political problems in disguise, such as the nature of the economy, the nature of the ownership system in the country and groups of vested interests,” said Zhang Ming, a political scientist at Renmin University in Beijing. “The problems are so serious that they have to be solved now and can no longer be put off.”

On Thursday, China released data that showed its economy was continuing to weaken. Many economists have been urging the government to loosen controls over the financial system, to support lending to private businesses while reining in state-owned enterprises, to allow more movement in exchange rates and interest rates, and to improve social benefits.

Such changes would curb the state’s role, lessen corruption and encourage competition. But making them would involve a titanic power struggle. Executives of Chinese conglomerates, army generals, Politburo members, local officials and the “princeling” children of Communist Party elders have little incentive to refashion a system that fills their coffers.

Another significant aspect of the China model is the growing security apparatus. Its heavy-handed tactics in pursuit of social stability have been called into question by, among other things, more than 30 self-immolations by disaffected Tibetans and a diplomatic crisis between China and the United States precipitated by the plight of a persecuted dissident, Chen Guangcheng. A well-documented uprising last winter against corrupt officials in the southern village of Wukan ignited a debate about how protests should be addressed: by the sword of the security forces, or through mediation by senior officials.

But it is the scandal over Bo Xilai, until recently a member of the party’s elite Politburo, that has most humbled those who previously praised the well-oiled nature of China’s political system and its appearance of unity.

Before the charismatic Mr. Bo lost his party chief post in Chongqing, other leaders were already starting to view him as an increasingly intolerable maverick. After arriving in Chongqing in late 2007, Mr. Bo began what was billed as a crackdown on crime, along with a revival of Mao-era singalongs and welfare policies, aimed at generating populist backing and winning political support from the “new left,” or hard-core socialists, for his bid to join the top-level Politburo Standing Committee, which is scheduled to turn over this year.

Mr. Bo’s bid veered sharply from the traditional route of ascension, which since the era of Deng Xiaoping has been one of back-room patronage and shadowy negotiations among party elders. The problem now in China is that the powers of those elders have diminished with each generation — the current president and party chief, Hu Jintao, is weaker than his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, who was much weaker than Mr. Deng.

With the dissolution of power, a multitude of factions and alliances are emerging under one-party rule, with no one voice able to impose order.

“China needs a system in place more than ever,” said Wang Kang, a liberal writer from Chongqing. “Only a system can guarantee stability.”

Some say that the purge of Mr. Bo was a correction in the political system, and that the system has returned to normal. But many others argue that given the growing incoherence at the top, and the diversity and reach of mass media in China, it is inevitable that more politicians will adopt Mr. Bo’s populist methods. Cheng Li, a scholar of Chinese politics, noted that at the annual National People’s Congress in March, several rising sixth-generation leaders gave prominent news media interviews, a form of self-promotion that was a break from tradition.

“There are no clear and steadfast rules,” said Wu Si, chief editor of Yanhuang Chunqiu, a journal of politics and history. “In this confused state, there is bound to be someone like Bo Xilai who deploys various methods to compete to enter the standing committee.”

Mr. Bo’s policies also helped expose another fault line in the China model: the priority placed on economic growth through investment projects carried out by state-owned enterprises, with generous loans from state banks. This is the framework propping up the Chinese economy.

Flush with infrastructure projects, Chongqing, with a population of 31 million, had an economic growth rate of 16.4 percent last year, the highest of any municipality. But the municipal government and local state-owned companies have accumulated $160 billion in debt, according to an estimate by Victor Shih, who studies China’s political economy. Many of those loans might never be repaid.

Policy makers pushing for a different model across China, one that relies more on consumer spending and encourages private enterprise, insist that long-stalled structural overhauls must be restarted. Some see an opening in the coming leadership transition. But the biggest hurdle may be the fact that both departing and incoming leaders have close ties to state-owned enterprises, which are keen to preserve the status quo.

The hesitancy over the next step is heightened by China’s cooling economy. The growth rate slowed to 8.1 percent in the first quarter of this year, and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in March cut the forecast for the year to 7.5 percent. The property market is deflating. The data released on Thursday showed that domestic demand is weakening and exports are flagging.

China warded off the global financial crisis with a $580 billion stimulus package and a loosening of bank lending. Its leaders could fall back on that government-led, investment-driven approach if the economy cools too much.

One thing keeping them in check, however, is fear of rampant inflation, which could increase social unrest. Discontent among the poor and middle class is a major source of anxiety for Chinese leaders, yet there are no easy solutions to the widening wealth gap, as long as rapid growth is the priority.

The surging number of protests arising from this gap is another stress point in the China model. Officials rely heavily on domestic security forces to quell what they call “mass incidents,” which one sociologist, Sun Liping, estimated at 180,000 in 2010. In March, the government announced that it planned to spend $111 billion on domestic security this year, a 12 percent increase over 2011, and $5 billion more than this year’s military budget.

During the uprising in Wukan last winter, which began because of what villagers called illegal land seizures by local officials, police units surrounded the village, but backed off after Guangdong Province officials negotiated with the residents. Wang Yang, the provincial party chief, took credit for the peaceful settlement and has proposed that that strategy be more widely adopted, in an implicit criticism of the militant tactics used in “stability maintenance.”

The weakness of those tactics was exposed once again when Mr. Chen, the activist put under house arrest in 2010, made his nighttime escape from village guards who had beaten him and his wife. Mr. Chen, who is blind, fled to the United States Embassy in Beijing. That such brutality could set off a diplomatic crisis between the world’s superpower and its rising rival is as obvious a sign as any of the deep flaws in China’s security methods.

“From the few times I’ve engaged with them,” Mr. Chen said, “I know they have the intention of reforming, of slowly initiating the rule of law. But I don’t know how soon.”

 China’s Unique Economic Model Gets New Scrutiny – NYTimes.com.

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