Henry do you know of the work of the marxist development economist Ann Seidman (very active in SA) on Chinese institutional, legal and financial reform? Was wondering if that qualifies as useful; she's done several articles about her and husband Bob's work there, but I don't have specific citations and don't know the character of the proposals.
There was quite a close connection a few years ago between the SA Communist Party and the Chinese party, and I think some funding flows from the latter. That led to some ideological support for China by the same SACP comrades who cowrote the piece I sent over a couple of days ago on the global crisis. But I haven't seen anything remotely positive about Chinese poli-econ from the SACP comrades since the early 1990s, and many seem to have taken up the position that the village enterprises -- the one area there was some interest in drawing on Chinese lessons for SA purposes -- are now to be avoided not emulated.
An important article that has informed lots of us in Johannesburg is by Gerard Greenfield and Apo Loeng in the 1997 Socialist Register (NY: Monthly Review): "China's Communist Capitalism: The Real World of Market Socialism." It is extremely critical; do you know it?
P. *************************************************** Patrick Bond 51 Somerset Road, Kensington 2094 Johannesburg, South Africa phone: (2711) 614-8088 email: pbond at wn.apc.org office: University of the Witwatersrand Graduate School of Public and Development Management PO Box 601, Wits 2050 phone (o): (2711)488-5917; fax: (2711) 484-2729 email (o): bondp at zeus.mgmt.wits.ac.za