China's
Economy Dances Between Communism and Capitalism
China is a
country of extremes. European cars swerve through traffic barely missing
battered Soviet-era motorcycles laden with bounties of plastic and metal
recyclables. College students carrying iPads walk past street vendors selling
15 cent eggs in various states of decomposition. While this clear dichotomy is
understandable considering the rapid growth of modern China’s economy over a
relatively short time period, it is no less startling. And nowhere is this
coexistence of extremes more apparent than in China’s official economic policy:
a “socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics.”