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Originally Posted by Rain Man
The flip side of that, though, is that the most ambitious of the third-worlders come here, giving us both a short-term advantage and a long-term edge. It's not so much about the people, it's about the political, social, and physical infrastructure that allows people to thrive. I'm not sure that China has that infrastructure.
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Rain Man, good point. I've been to China on business 18 times since 1991 to this year. The Chinese have a chance to have a great country which would be good for the world. There not even close to having a good government, legal system or human rights. These are HUGE drawbacks for them. I believe that China will one day become a true democracy and that will be a great thing for humanity (afterall there are 1.4 billion of them) but until then they will suffer from rampant greed, political corruption on a huge scale and huge social changes as the haves and have nots square off in the next 10 to 20 years.
Right now a successful chinese guy under 40 would say he's happy that he can make money and provide quality of life for his family. He knows he's not free but it beats food rationing that he had when he was a kid. Now just wait until this guys kid grows up playing nintendo, having nice things and being highly educated. That generation will make changes. The big question is will it lead to a civil war or will it be a peaceful change to democracy and re-unification with Taiwan. Time will tell.