In the west, the barbaric way that animals are treated ( tight-caging and mistreatment of millions of poultry, massive industrial-scale slaughtering of farm animals, crushing and killing of farm animals with less economic value without regards for pain and suffering, forcing ducks to drink gallons of water before killing to make foie gras, massive seal culling, deer hunting and so on ) is not a myth either.
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Jason Lee
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Reuters-Landov
At China's Military Museum in Beijing
Everything You Know About China Is Wrong
Published Oct 17, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Oct 26, 2009
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The conventional wisdom is that China is steaming through the global financial crisis by building on the momentum generated by its 30-year boom. Indeed, ever since it sailed through the last big global crisis—the Asian contagion 10 years ago—Beijing has been feted for uniquely steady helmsmanship in financial storms. So perhaps it's natural for forecasters to assume that the Chinese supertanker of state is not turning sharply now, particularly since it continues to grow rapidly even as other economies sink in the recession. Yet this crisis is different—bigger and more damaging than any seen in generations—and it is exposing limits and forcing change in just about every key piece of the China model: the supremacy of the one-party state, the smart economic management, the export-driven growth, the emerging consumer class, the burgeoning private sector, the headlong focus on growth at any environmental cost, and the drive to build world-class companies. What follows is a look at why these common assumptions about China are increasingly inaccurate or just plain wrong.
Myth No. 1: THE COMMUNIST PARTY IS A MONOLITH.
No, the financial crisis is splitting the party, pitting the rural populists against the urban growth-firsters. The populists include the current top two, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, who favor slower growth, distributed more evenly to poorer rural Western regions, governed with a more careful eye to protecting the environment and less devotion to the free market. Opposed to them are the elite factions based in urban coastal cities, led by Shanghai, who want high-speed growth, more freedom for the free market, and greater support for entrepreneurs and the private sector. While it's too early to tell which faction will win out, it's clear that the new leadership will take China in new and possibly unexpected directions. "Perhaps the biggest myth about China is that it is only developing economically," says Cheng Li, a China expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "In fact, it's also evolving politically."
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