Would it be invitation to oversimplification if I asked if people on this list who hold a particular assessment or opinion of China, to put theirs forth in brief if possible?  The only large developing nation to make a quantum leap into successful mass industrialization, under the auspices of a nominally communist government, but I don't really know what the scope of opinion is on what their government is doing from the left.  Degraded workers state?  Worst of both worlds, stanlinst neoliberalism?  Hope-inspiring developmentalist rising power?  What do informed lbo people feel about contemporary china? <div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> China and Vietnam borrowed and refined the developmental state strategies invented by post-WW II continental Europe, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. These countries invested heavily in education and technology, created welfare states or ensured egalitarian distributions of wealth, and most of all, disciplined capital. The state wasn't the executive committee of the bourgeoisie; the bourgeoisie was more like the executive committee of the state. China right now is rolling out a huge national broadband system, and owns major stakes in most of its leading industries. Another example: one third of the German banking system is publicly owned; Germany's powerful unions put a check on what capital can do. Germany's government-mandated renewable energy boom is another fine example of what developmental states can do. </blockquote></div>