Shanghai Stock Exchange (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I would not be so quick as the Guardian and other overly gleeful commentators brimming with schaedenfreude to write off the Chinese economy just yet.
Certainly those poor people forced to return home to the rural lifestyles that they thought they had escaped from will not be happy.
The idea that they are all going to revolt and blame the Chinese Government is fanciful in the extreme.
In the first place, for good or ill, the Chinese Government has tried to compress 100 years of progress into a 10 year period, something that has never been done before in the history of the world.
Yes mistakes have been made but looking at the UK and US banking crisis and the deliberate plundering of the respective exchequors to enrich a few plutocrats, we are in a glasshouse throwing stones.
With massive reserves, investments overseas and the necessary changes in economic policy, like the Terminator they will be back.
Time and again Western commentators, politicians and the media have underestimated the resilience of the Chinese economy, the abilities of their people, the strength of their character, and the level of their technological progress.
This time will be no different but the pain that ordinary people in China will have to bear will be immense.
There will have to be change, of course, as that country moves up the food-chain to a higher point on the value chain and to a higher wage economy.
John Gelmini
Dr Alf's Blog 