Our local rag today features a glowing opinion piece penned by a Yale professor on the rosy state of the the Chinese economy, at least for the next five years.

It makes some good points, and balances the enthusiasm with a few notes of caution:

Rising rates of unemployment in the cities and growing inequality threaten long-term growth at societal and household levels. And if the Chinese government fails to mobilise the health-care system to curb the spread of Aids, the disease will divert scarce welfare funds from education and infrastructure investments. Such a scenario would undoubtedly undermine the strengths of China’s population, and therefore of its growing economy.

However, given the continuing improvements in China’s human software, the core fundamentals for macro-economic growth remain strong. In the immediate future, therefore, even with little or no growth in rates of global trade, it is unlikely that China’s economy will burst like a bubble.

Still, I am amazed that the writer can come to this cheerful conclusion without once mentioning what is at the heart of the bubble argument, i.e., the out-of-control banking system and the nearly 200,000 unproductive, money-bleeding SOEs that keep so many of the Chinese working class employed. This is a lose-lose scenario that simply must be taken into account if you’re going to make sweeping predictions of China’s economic health.

And if UNAID predictions are anywhere close to accurate, AIDS will definitely affect the “core fundamentals” of China’s economy. 10 million infected mainlanders by 2010….Unless they just leave them to die, someone’s got to pay the bills.

In KL yesterday I actually taught a seminar on writing copy for the Internet, and I included a few slides on blogs. I was amazed to learn that Malaysians have no idea what blogs are; these were all communications professionals, and none of the 40 attendees had ever heard the word “blog.”

This may have been a big mistake, but I told them the most popular Asian blog was The Gweilo Diaries, and I wrote the url on the whiteboard as everyone in the room giggled at the name. (I only hope on the day they check the site out, Conrad isn’t posting about how his latest Asian femme fatale has messed up his bedlinens again.) In retrospect, this was probably a mistake and I should have sent them to Flying Chair.

I also encouraged them to start their own blogs. But they seemed utterly mystified as I tried to explain to them how interesting and fun blogging is.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, the Singapore government’s new campaign to instill in its people a spirit of boldness and entrepreneurialism has been slow to take off, for the simple reason that they’re trying to teach an old dog new tricks.

I think a lot of people would be surprised to see just how deeply rooted this sense of complacency bordering on passivity really is here. I’ve come to notice little hints that actually say quite a lot about The Singapore Phenomenon.

Take u-turns. Nearly everywhere I’ve ever been, there are signs that tell you where you cannot make a u-turn. In Singapore, you are only allowed to make a u-turn where signs say that you can. In other words, it goes without saying that you cannot make a u-turn anywhere in Singapore except where The Government tells you you can.

That’s a good metaphor for the Singapore psyche, at least the way Lee Kuan Yew molded it over the past 30 years: If the government does not explicitly tell you that you can do something, you are to presume it is forbidden. The government makes the decision, and you always assume the government knows best.

Just today, I asked a client what she likes most about Singapore, and she replied proudly, “I love the way the government always takes care of me, and I never need to worry.” And the prime minister is wondering why the people are risk-averse and disinclined toward making bold decisions?

It was only a couple of days ago that I got another hint. I noticed the day I arrived that whenever I get into a taxi and give my destination, the driver automatically says, “Do you want me to taxe XYZ Road, or should I take ABC Street?” Every time.

It was only recently that I realized this is not a matter of politeness, but is rather one more bit of fallout from what Lee Kuan Yew hath wrought: the drivers will not choose the best route, even though they are the professionals and know best. No, instead they wait for you to tell them which way to go. They wait for your permission. I usually reply, “Look, I don’t know how to get around in Singapore — that’s your job, so take me there the way you think is best.”

Usually that works well enough, but last week I had a taxi driver who was absolutely petrified when I told him to make his own frigging choice. He literally couldn’t do it. He turned and started to explain, “Well, if we go this way, we have to drive through blah blah blah, and if we go that way, we might run into traffic because blah blah blah….” I almost lost my temper and I finally told him to just get me home and stop explaining the Singapore highway system to me.

Part of my enthusiasm about coming to Singapore was a mistaken impression that it was basically another Hong Kong, just a bit hotter and wetter. I had a lot of learning to do. Honkies may just be the world’s most cut-throat, entrepreneurial money-driven businesspeople on the face of the earth. They are the opposite of Singaporeans. They are hard-driving, hard-partying, preternaturally motivated ueber-capitalists. No one tells Honkies where they can make their u-turns.

Don’t get me wrong; I still love Singapore. I’ve just had to adjust my expectations of what life here is all about. It lacks the dynamism and excitement of HK. But then again, maybe after my year in China, it was time for me to live a less exciting and dynamic life. No complaints. Just lots of observations.

But too swamped in work to even think about blogging. It may take several more days before I can get back into things. Bear with me….

See Cal Pundit’s Liars List and check out the comments. Funny, but also not funny.

I leave today and won’t be back until Thursday morning. I may not be able to post at all until then, though I’ll certainly try.

After reading through a number of pieces on L. Jean Lewis’ appointment to chief of staff of the Defense Department’s inspector general office I am in awe yet again at the Bush administration’s sheer audacity and sliminess.

Lewis is a known liar, fraudster and schemer. She helped orchestrate the noise about Whitewater, then perjured herself over an illegal tape recording. Ken Starr then protected her and hushed it all up.

Her appointment was made in silence. Her salary will be $118,000. She has no qualifications. Her appointment to an office overseeing fraud is such an irony it defies belief.

Orcinus chronicles her entire ugly history with his usual thoroughness. After detailing her crimes he observes:

Lewis remained under wraps until now. Clearly, there is abundant evidence that Lewis committed all these crimes. Instead, she has faced no consequences.

The really germane question is this: How exactly did L. Jean Lewis rise suddenly from the ranks of minor RTC investigator to the overseer of a massive Defense Department bureau? What exactly were her qualifications? The ones she put on display for the RTC: Namely, ginning up scandals against Democrats, and covering up scandals against Republicans.

If a firestorm of protest doesn’t arise from this I’m going to lose all hope.

I just read an agonizing story in the Baltimore Sun about impoverished Chinese workers who rushed at the opportunity to make money mining gold.

Thanks to the lack of safety measures, they are now dying a slow death caused by breathing in the dust as they mined. For the poor village it is a tragedy from which it can never recover; one woman interviewed is going to lose all her sons and grandsons (7 men in all). And the disease is preventable with fairly simple safety procedures.

As always, it was the officials who ended up rich, while those they are supposed to represent were sent to die.

In time, the gold rush in this community of 14,500 in Jiangxi province became a tragic microcosm of the economic free-for-all under way in China, where the winners are well-connected, the losers have little recourse, and, often, no one is held accountable.

The article closes with a wail of hopelessness; the mine is closed, and there is no work for the survivors. One of most troubling and depressing pieces on China I’ve seen to date.

A frightening story by John Pomfret explores China’s policy of evicting poor citizens from their shacks or small homes to make way for development.

On Aug. 22, Weng Biao was preparing to buy a lunch of steamed fish and pickled vegetables for his wife when officials from the government Office of Demolition showed up at his family’s two-room shack in a small field slated to become a shopping mall and ordered him to come with them.

A 39-year-old part-time laborer with a bad leg, Weng limped to the office 200 yards away. Minutes later, several other officials barged into Weng’s house, took a jerrycan of gasoline and forced his wife, 11-year-old son and 74-year-old father outside. A bulldozer arrived and knocked down the house even though local residents had been given until Aug. 30 to leave the area, witnesses and Chinese reporters said.

It gets worse. Weng is somehow doused in gasoline, lit on fire (apparently accidentally; several officials with him were burned as well) and killed.

Pomfret delves into how peasants who protest their evictions are imprisoned, as are their lawyers. As always in China, there is a single root of all evil:

Widespread corruption is the main factor fueling the real estate war in China. Local government officials, factory bosses and other Chinese in positions of power sell the rights to use chunks of land to developers for a low price plus a hefty kickback. They then collude with gangs to oust villagers or urban residents of the area. The compensation paid to those residents, if any, is often a fraction of what the property is really worth.

When the Party is the government, the courts, the media and the police, there’s no where to turn, and corruption becomes the norm. There’s a lot of glitzy new malls and office buildings in nearly every city in China. It’s intriguing to learn the dark side of how these splendid creations came to be.

Update: Another article on a very similar theme just came out, equally depressing.

An official for the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention says at least 1,000 flu patients in Beijing have been misdiagnosed as having Sars so far this year.

Which leads me to ask, if 1,000 people in Beijing have been diagnosed with SARS (wrongly or rightly) now that flu season is here, how come we haven’t heard about it until now? One lab worker in Singapore is diagnosed with SARS, and the country goes into overdrive, with talk of bringing back temperature checks and closing schools. [Correction: The article apparently refers only to January through June of this year, when the last case of SARS in Beijing was announced. Thanks for poiinting this out Adam.]

Odd, by the way, how the story of the lab worker here has totally vanished from the Singapore media, with no update or anything. It’s like he vaporized.
[Update: Now there’s a kind-of sequel to his story, though it doesn’t really tell us about his present condition.]