A Point of View - China (Singapore?)

This is an interesting commentary regarding China's ascent, especially the bit about: "What the Chinese Government hopes is that in the rush to shop at Armani's, drive a big car and buy a home computer, the Chinese people will forget all about political freedom."

This reminded me strongly about Singapore, and sure enough, scrolling down to the comments, I read:

"I read Brian Walden's article with interest. If I could make one small point, Mr Walden says that the Chinese are conducting an experiment in which the population accept a trade off between prosperity and political participation. I do not think that harnessing 1.3 billion people is an experiment, it is the real thing. The controlled 'lab experiment' was in Singapore; and it worked rather well."

Touché.