Two views on China

Mark Steyn looks at China today and sees "a cunning simulation of external wealth and power that is, in fact, a forbidding false front for a state that remains a squalid hovel."

Sheldon Richman looks and says "some people just can’t take good news. They have to look for the gray lining in every silver cloud. ... The new anti-Chinese hysteria makes less sense than the old did. When will we get it through our heads that it is good for others to get rich? It makes us even richer."

Economically, the Chinese are freer than they used to be. Chinese entrepreneurs can raise capital, and foreigners can invest their money, to create productive enterprises. Chinese workers have far more choices than they used to have. The result has been stunning economic growth and an export boom fueled by low-priced high-quality products.

Steyn's point perhaps is that this success may not be sustainable as long as the authoritarian regime remains in place. "Betting on Beijing," he says, "will find the China shop is in the end mostly a lot of bull." But as I argue here, it is possible that trade with China will itself be a tool of liberation that eventually means the demolition of the 'squalid aithoritarian hovel.' As Richman says, "although China still has a communist-inspired authoritarian government, this is not your father’s Red nemesis. Much has changed in the world’s most populous country." Trade and prosperity is what is making that change possible.