English: The skyline of Shanghai, China. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
People in glass houses should not throw stones, and people with dodgy economies, with deep-rooted problems, should not pontificate about China.
We have had stories like this before, along the lines that it would take 20 years for China to catch up technologically, that they would not be able to cope with an ageing population, and that they face breakup because of the legitimate aspirations of Tibetans and Uighurs to achieve independence.
Faced with this barrage of criticism, one could be forgiven for thinking that for them the sky would fall in and that they would be consumed by plagues and swarms of locusts and scorpions.
Every challenge they have patiently dealt with in their own way whilst at the same time creating 25 million nett new jobs a year, something that has never been done in the history of the world.
The criticism perhaps then is that the jobs are sweatshop jobs that nobody in the West or the readership of the Western newspaper involved would want. This may be true but if the alternative is living on a quarter of that salary in rural poverty, then the reality for that worker is a four-fold improvement in their standard of living, and the ability to send money home.
GO OUT/BRING BACK IN is a tough policy to follow but Chinese people in the practically minded categories are establishing themselves in businesses the world over, so in reality the Chinese economy is a lot bigger than the official figures suggest.
Dr Alf's Blog 