The future for the New China - the writing on the wall

In village society, elections are held for the village representatives. Budgets are routinely posted for public scrutiny. The importance of job creation, and not just wealth creation, is to be given priority in the new push forward. Thumbs up for the SME. All very healthy signs.

This is where a free press comes in. The best way to spread ideas and to interchange and, importantly, learn what not to do, is to have open discussion and commentary in the media, on television and in newspapers and magazines - hence the tea houses.

Whereas in the earliest years of Chinese Communism the only legitimate form of income was that earned by physical labour, and this worked to give impetus for a reshuffle of everything. That has gone on long enough. The dough is mixed. To bake the bread active ingredients are needed.

These are seen in the new allowables of income from rent, share dividends, interest from bank deposits and profits from trading. All these are now acceptable. Land transfers are to be recognised under the law and property rights strengthened with home ownership. There are to be tax advantages and a general redirection of the financial system. With these types of economic freedoms many people will jump on the bandwagon and the projected GDP growth figures are very likely to be met.

In better-off regions, local governments are asked to provide welfare programmes such as old age pensions, medical systems, education and a minimum living allowance, as it is understood that distribution of the wealth is still a criteria to balance the new efforts that are going towards wealth creation.

It would be a mistake, though, to see industrialisation as a conversion of the rural into the urban. What is needed - as in many countries - is a reinvigoration of the rural by providing the kinds of amenities available in the cities, to offer the home town as an alternative to the young. Also, to stop the spread of cheap-labour ghetto townships in urban areas.

Industrialisation needs to be seen in the application of hi-tech (today often called IT) to industry (and to farming, and market-gardening) for efficiency and standardisation of products. This is important to get away from socially destructive cheap labour ethics which are bound to fail in the long term, as China reaches its economic goals.

The term "revolutionary" still holds good as long as transformations are taking place that bring nearer the goal of general social benefits and a lifting in the quality of life for an ever increasing majority. Communism only starts with poverty, it is not a mandatory and continuing state that proves it! Also, revolution has nothing essentially to do with bombs and wars, though in the past these were too-obvious fellow travellers.

Outsiders have not given thought to what Communism would be in an economically healthy country. Certainly, there are no existing examples, given capitalism's all-out efforts to quench the fires of people like Lenin, Mao, Castro and the lesser lights of workers’ champions.

Violence and coercion have always been associated with Communism because it has always had to start with nothing and has been opposed by violence. The automatic reaction is to fight fire with fire. Chinese Communism is taking another way, yet still it is fighting fire with fire. It is taking on capitalism.

China is playing the West's game and in the long term can be the big winner. When China calls the shots, its stalwarts who have grasped the nettle of political awareness can re-engage themselves in the task. Remember, they have no external debt, they are quite used to self-sufficiency. They don't run on petroleum. They have never colonised - Tibet and Mongolia are strategic plays, not economic. In other words, they do not have the heavy baggage of many other countries.

Whereas apologists for Western (including Japanese) imperialism mention enlightened capitalism, they are rather shy of speaking about enlightened Communism. Is "social market economy with Chinese characteristics" commensurate with a de-centralised economic and political structure where trade is within its boundaries and with ASEAN countries? No self-defeating struggle for the lucrative Western markets. Where the emphasis returns to the people thing, the true People's Republic, the Jet Min.