Thursday, January 29, 2009

Coming Crisis in China?

There is an "almost" funny little report in today's 'New York Times' with China's Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao, using some of that flowery "harmonious society" type rhetoric that only the Chinese are capable of when describing political and social economic situations. Anyway there was Wen at the World Economic Forum in Davos, blaming the "capitalist roaders" for "inappropriate macroeconomic policies,” an “unsustainable model of development characterized by prolonged low savings and high consumption,” the “blind pursuit of profit” and “the failure of financial supervision”(1), while tinging his guilt accusations with the promise that China will work with the West to find a way out of the crisis and to top it all off there he was telling everyone that “The harsh winter will be gone and spring is around the corner.”(2)
Poor Wen doesn't realise that this is all a big "capitalist roader" game, that his predictions of the Chinese economy growing by 8% this year are almost as unrealistic as Mao's predictions for 'the Great Leap Forward'. Wen you are in the boat now and the evidence would seem to suggest that this crisis will be over when the Anglo-Saxons have the reigns completely under control. Yes, with shipments from Taiwan and Japan also down, the Chinese economy will be lucky if it sees 6% growth this year, jobs will leave the big cities, the migrant workers will return in droves to their villages and there will be disturbances in the provinces. Of course, this will not threaten the lords of the manor and while China's economy has hit a wall, the events in the provinces will be shaking any foundations in Beijing.
1 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/world/europe/29davos.html?_r=1&hp
2 ibid

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