Aw China, you so crazy!

I don't know what this means, but it's evil.

I'm contrarian by nature, so I've always been pretty bearish about China's next ten years. Maybe it's a knee-jerk reaction to communists (I'm still living in 1952 and I wasn't yet alive then), but I prefer to trace my doubts to the fact that it's a completely corrupt state with out-of-control shadow industries and an economy so in danger of overheating that occasionally a factory spontaneously bursts into flames.

That's why I find this story in the NYT to be so deliciously enjoyable. It's pure madness that a country can grow at 10% a year and not run off of a cliff occasionally, but there is always a sea of lemmings faithfully trusting in the Chinese leadership's all-wise aversion to ledges. Long-term, the state is going to need reforms - long-standing institutions which relied on that (very little remaining) nationalist Communist pride will be ripped to shreds by capitalism in the next thirty years. Short term the country is going to be massively unstable as rapid industrialization, regime uncertainty, a corrupt business environment oftentimes outside of regulation, and a government obsessed with maintaining the facade of  ultra growth multiply business cycles to painful extremes.

China is given a pass by a media that is more interested in whipping up fear over the country's ascent then by pointing out its probable failures. It's going to be interesting to watch this play out.