LM leaving list "for a while"/China's socialist path

[John Gulick <john_gulick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

MP posted:
 
>I would have hoped that we could have learned something from Eric; that he could
>have moved beyond boilerplate & engaged with John G. & Marty. I am not sure that
>that could have happened.
 
JG sez:
 
I wince at the suggestion that I'm in the same league as Marty when it comes to the
political economy of anything East Asian. I'm in no position to offer trustworthy insight
as to what's really going on inside China.... very few are. Perhaps too intemperately,
I was simply warning against drawing conclusions from CCP press releases. Even when
policies coming from the central government sound excellent and deserve our "critical
support" (FWIW, which ain't much!), they are routinely given lip service but not obeyed,
subverted, ignored, etc. Despite conventional understanding China is very decentralized
and chaotic and often Beijing can't do much more issue than pleasant-sounding directives.
One has to be a seasoned political sociologist or veteran bureaucratic infighter to understand
this and report credibly (and I am neither)... which is precisely why, Ravi, I considered Eric's
postings to be so much insubstantial dross.

---

Connect and share in new ways with Windows Live. Get it now!