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From: Hong Kong Garden Takeaway
Date: 18 Nov 2010
Time: 08:51:43 -0600
It's all about the politics. China sees an opportunity to embarrass Britain in retaliation for past colonial wrongs. It knows how to throw its weight around, diplomatically. It thinks it builds self-esteem at home, with some cute point scoring. But because of its size, geographically, culturally, it can never really 'westernise' or 'modernise' - its notions of capitalism and democracy are always instruments for the Manchurian will-to-dominance, cementing power and privilege. The centralised, inherently dynastic model of government exploits and oppresses its provinces and hinterlands and brings with it a cyclical revolution or civil war. It may have a 100 million billionaires, but that's not going to help when there are 800 million slaves intent on evening scores, letting Peking know its got just 55 days as a sitting duck.