And we still have some semblance of rule of law, whereas the Chinese have rule of Xi.
To me, that is their biggest weakness (it’s the weakness of any dictatorship). In the long run, you are at the mercy of the whims of one man.
In our case we still have a somewhat independent judiciary and fairly stable codified laws, so any entity, foreign or domestic knows what the rules of the game are.
Whereas in China the rules of the game are whatever Xi says they are at any point in time, as Jack MA and Alibaba learned. So there is one rule there - don’t do anything that might upset Xi.
Now, dictatorships also have their strengths... if the dictator is wise and has the best interest of his people at heart. Since he can command stuff to be done at the drop of a hat with no opposition, things get done very quickly.
By any measure, Xi, so far, has done a pretty good job of that. He and some of his predecessors have taken China from a basket case to a world power, soon to surpass the US in GDP.
That, though, could change in a heartbeat if he gets too ambitious and pulls a stupid stunt in Taiwan, like Putin did with Ukraine It will set China back decades and destroy not only its economy but the world’s.
So which way will Xi and China go? Will Xi be a wise man or a fool? We may soon find out.
I think Xi is in over his ability.
He’ll get booted like the far more capable Khrushchev was.
You are exactly right. The author points out the inherent deep flaw of any totalitarian state — total and complete opaqueness about everything and especially about financial data. You cannot trust ANY data the Chinese put out.
Unfortunately, the rule of law in the USA is collapsing. We clearly have two sets of laws for the high-level connected “good” people and the rest of us.
And the abuse of Executive Orders and the Regulatory Branch continues apace. Just today, Brandon signed an EO commanding the entire federal government to base their actions on “environmental justice.” And the Regulatory State has decided we should not use fossil fuels, you cannot have natural gas appliances, or gasoline cars. The EOs and Regulators are totalitarian command-and-control lunatics that are destroying us. It is probably worse communism than Xi uses in China.