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China: The Frog and the Scorpion

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Changing course in a country like China is akin to turning an aircraft carrier: start a long time in advance and give yourself plenty of sea room. If China is to shift its economy in the direction of its potentially huge home market, it will have to improve the lives of its citizens. Wages have gone up between 15 and 20 percent over the past two years and are scheduled to rise another 15 percent.

But social services will also have to be improved. Health care, once free, has become a major burden for many Chinese, a problem the government will have to address.

There are some in the Chinese government whose definition of "reform" is ending government involvement in the economy and shifting to a wide-open free market system. It is not clear that the bulk of China's people would support such a move. All they have to do is look around them to the see the wreckage such an economic model inflicts in other parts of the world.

Can capitalism work without all the collateral damage? Karl Marx, the system's great critic, thought it could not. Can China figure out a way to overcome system's flaws, or is this the tale of the frog and the scorpion?

The scorpion asked the frog to ferry it across a river, but the frog feared the scorpion would sting him. The scorpion protested: "If I sting you, than I die as well." So the frog put the scorpion on his back and began to swim. When he reached mid-stream, the scorpion stung him. The dying frog asked "Why?" and the scorpion replied, "Because it is my nature."

Can China swim the scorpion across the river and avoid the sting? Stay tuned.

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Conn M. Hallinan is a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus, à ‚¬Å"A Think Tank Without Walls, and an independent journalist. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. He (more...)
 
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