[quote=briansd1]
The central government top levels of leadership is very competent. [/quote]

Very much so. They handled the fallout from Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” with considerable aplomb. Of course, the millions upon millions of dead Chinese peasants were a problem…

Every level of Chinese government is a joke. The upper echelons simply do a better job of covering their ineptitude. From SARS to the Uighurs to the environmental catastrophe that is Chinese manufacturing to ginning up economics numbers, you have all the same type players that wrecked Soviet Russia, just of different ethnicity.

I refuse to work in China, but know quite a few companies that do security and force protection work there and it is bad news. Considerable social unrest, problems with Muslims and ethnic minorities, a group of disaffected former People’s Army officers numbering 200,000 strong that are on the verge of insurrection, etc, etc, etc.

The idea that China is floating is the same one that the Soviets were floating during the Cold War: Cultural homogeneity, backed by a monolithic centrally controlled economy and military. We all know how that turned out. As with the Soviets, pick at the threads hard enough and the truth eventually wills out.