This massive article on China purports to have been written by only two reporters, but its portrayal of China’s economy and social condition is so fragmented and contradictory that I have to assume at least six different writers contributed pieces to it, and that their editor was on vacation.
This piece on China’s first-strike capacity is much more internally coherent. Unfortunately, it seems to propose we return to a cold war-style arms race.
Oh, and Yao Ming is the slowest guy in the league.
I agree on the Spiegel article.
That’s good to hear. It’s a very strange piece, at one point praising the crap out of the regime’s adoption of capitalism, then bending over backward to show how it remains some sort of socialist country. The most amazing/insulting part was this:
“The workers’ patience seems limitless. Rarely do they refuse to work, and when they do it is to protest about sub-standard food or poor living conditions. And when that does happen, the factory bosses promptly contact the party, which sends in the police. Strikes have been forbidden in China since 1982, when the communists removed the right to strike from the constitution.”
Anyway, this article was all over the darn place. In my day job, there’s a lot of conversation about pharma/biopharma outsourcing going over to China and India, but there’s still a great deal of reticence about sending over any work that’s IP-heavy, especially to China.
And Yao really IS the slowest guy.
I keep waiting for the Dali Llama to enter the fray, unveiling a secret pact with The Hand. With the ninjas easily dismantling China’s forces, Tibet is once again able to stand tall. Yao can even help put back up some of the roofs.