>I think that China has a very good chance of becoming like Taiwan,
>Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, and Indonesia and is trying to do so by the
>same means. Not a rosy picture.
Taiwan, Singapore, and Korea, while not workers' paradises, did achieve substantial industrialization and massive improvements in material living standards in a relatively short period of time. It's hard to think of any precedents for or rivals to them in economic history, in fact. Hong Kong is a small city-state in an odd location that's hard to see as a reproducible model, leaving aside the question of whether reproducible models exist at all. Indonesia is a mess. So which will China be like?
Doug