>Nor can I understand how anyone can fail to distinguish between Lee
>Kuan Yew's Singapore and Mao Zedong's China.
Of course they're different, but what are the relative developmental prospects for a tiny city-state with a long history as a port and trading post and a gigantic, isolated, and mostly agrarian country? It's not like China could have woken up one morning and said, "Gosh, I think I'll become a hotbed of electronics and finance" and accomplish the task rather quickly.
Doug