After 2012

The book 'China Road', which I have just finished, brought no revelations, nothing new. In bits it rambled on and in bits it clarified, the kind of book, which could have been better edited, better structured, a little bit soppy at times. However, a decent enough read and enough to get the brain cells working and that leads me to already clarifying what I have just written; there was this little bit at the end where he sees hope for China in that generation of leaders that will come to power after the Party Congress in 2012 and that was a sort of new angle; the generation that grew up after 1979, that have been exposed to western ideas and, indeed, have invariably been educated in the West. Maybe, Maybe, perhaps, perhaps, could be, could be, might be, might be ...... and if ever academic caution were more appropriate!
Whatever, it is another synthesis that I find more interesting and that is his conclusion that environmental pollution represents the greatest threat to this being China's century. well, peasant revolt here, peasant revolt there, Tibet, oil, Xinjiang, corruption, people being turfed out of their houses, I would agree, it is, indeed, how China will cope with its continued development and its increasing environmental problems that will be decisive.
There are those in the government who realise the above such as China's Deputy Minister of the Environment, Pan Yue who gave an interview to this effect with the German magazine, "Der Speigel".1 Nevertheless, there will be those in the party who will be trying to push increased economic growth even if it is detrimental to the the environment. Whatever the outcome, China might be a one party system but that party is no longer the one monolithic, homogeneous, entity that it once was and, yes, it will be interesting to see what happens after 2012.
1 http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,345694,00.html