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Originally Posted by Ret10Echo
Interesting article in the August 6 - 12th edition of The Economist. Discussion on the significance of the wreck on Chinese politics...
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Interesting article - thanks - for convenience - posted link and excerpt below (assuming this is the article).
The Economist
August 6th edition
Dissent in China
Of development and dictators
http://www.economist.com/node/21525419
Excerpts:
China’s rulers love to point out the shortcomings of Western-style democracies; the “Beijing model” by contrast gets difficult jobs done. That view is often echoed by Western businesspeople. Yet breakneck economic development has cut corners, distorted priorities and created big conflicts of interest. The railways ministry is manufacturer, operator and regulator of the network. Now ordinary Chinese folk are questioning their country’s less-than-triple-A politics. A hurtling train is a metaphor for runaway development that is generating its share of collapsing buildings, lethal coal mines and bulldozed neighbourhoods. By contrast, Japan’s bullet train has had just one fatality in 47 years, a passenger caught in a door.
China’s technocrats managed to fix its once faulty airlines. But the issue at Wenzhou is not really the rushed engineering. Rather it is the growing need, in an increasingly complex country, for scrutiny, accountability and public debate. It has, in other words, shown the limits of dictatorship. Some of China’s rulers probably know that—but, to judge by the news crackdown now under way, clearly not enough of them.