Beijing’s investment bankers

CANADIAN COLUMNIST George Jonas tells the story of a laugh he recently shared with a businessman friend when the latter admitted that 15 years ago he could never have imagined the reason for his latest trip to Beijing: to raise capital.

Jonas briefly examines the reasons why China now has its own versions of the fat bald guy in a top hat from the Monopoly game, and notes that the Chinese decided the Soviets had it backwards by putting glasnost before perestroika.

After several false starts, the view gradually emerged that keeping dissenting intellectuals on a tight leash but giving merchants and entrepreneurs some incentive, a little wiggle room, might be the way to keep China’s rulers in power.

Mr. Jonas is quick to assure readers that he sees nothing at all praiseworthy about this development:

If this summary makes me sound like an apologist for Dengism-Huism, I’m most assuredly not….China’s discovery that capitalism works is no news to me. As far as I’m concerned, if it works in a slave society, in a free society it works even better.

He concludes:

Hu doesn’t solicit my advice, but if he did, I’d tell him as long as Barack Obama is in the White House, China need not worry about America’s missiles. Obama’s secret weapon is America’s debt.

The entire article is here.