I don’t think it’s as bad as the Economist makes it out to be... A lot of times a “riot” in China consists of 50 people screaming at some government local, and then going away. Rarely does it flare to anything worse than that (not because they’ll get shot, but that’s just the way the Chinese culture is).
China has a lot of problems to be sure, and they know their only way out is economically. Meaning they have to hook on to the EU or the US, and they’ve chosen the US. It also means they have to start letting a middle class develop (which is tiny, but growing), and they have to pay attention to what that middle class wants. Thus you get improvements in basic utilities, you get better roads, you get more economic - and political - freedom for the wealthier, richer provinces.
Corruption is actually decreasing, as are quality/manufacturing issues. It’s just that they’re much more visible because of more freedom of the press and foreign correspondents. Outside of China, we’re more aware of problems inside, but the number of problems is actually dropping pretty dramatically.
China’s going to follow the US economically for the next few generations, at least, and provide the “fingers and hands” for the US. We dominate - and will continue to do so - in research, high tech design, services. China will become more and more the manufacturing and low-tech design center, and they’re happy to do so.
I'd like to see them concentrate on building a middle class and lifting the lower classes also.
All the atrocities of the Chi-Coms were contemporaneous news items for me from the very beginning of Mao's "agrarian" reforms.
It'd be nice if the Chi-Coms would never ask us again vis-a-vis a threat of war, "How many people can you afford to lose? We can afford to lose [insert current population of the U.S.]."
Thanks again!