The muddling-through option in China is not to be misunderestimated

FEATURE: "Interesting Times," by James Fallows, The Atlantic, April 2009.

Nice piece by Fallows. Everybody right now seems of two minds about China: it's going to rule all or it's going to ruin all.

Fallows strikes a very nice balance here.

Best bit:

Observers outside China often compare its difficulties to Japan's a generation earlier. Few people inside China think the two economies have much in common . . .

Instead, the Chinese leadership obsesses far more over repeating the mistakes--as they perceive them--of Soviet Russia, meaning they will do whatever it takes to retain economic stability.

Those who love to ponder the Taiwan scenario hate this logic. They want you to believe that China will willingly go off a cliff over Taiwan, but the only country that could really trigger that insanity would be us, and we're simply not willing, growing--as we are even at our top leadership--more and more aware of our intertwined economic fates.

Beyond that, Fallows' piece speaks to China's ambition toward, and possibilities for, using this crisis to actually improve its long-term competitive prospects.

I know, I know, another trend to fear!!!!!

But frankly, our sense of confidence going forward can't be based on wanting everyone else to fail. That's simply childish and economically backasswards.

Comments

[Louis Heberlein]

Not too many US writers have personal as well as research insights on China and/or Japan. I wish there was a way to have an ongoing dialogue between Fallows and Barnett communities.