MP posted:
>I would have hoped that we could have learned something from Eric; that he
>could
>have moved beyond boilerplate & engaged with John G. & Marty. I am not sure
>that
>that could have happened.
JG sez:
I wince at the suggestion that I'm in the same league as Marty when it comes to
the
political economy of anything East Asian. I'm in no position to offer
trustworthy insight
as to what's really going on inside China.... very few are. Perhaps too
intemperately,
I was simply warning against drawing conclusions from CCP press releases. Even
when
policies coming from the central government sound excellent and deserve our
"critical
support" (FWIW, which ain't much!), they are routinely given lip service but
not obeyed,
subverted, ignored, etc. Despite conventional understanding China is very
decentralized
and chaotic and often Beijing can't do much more issue than pleasant-sounding
directives.
One has to be a seasoned political sociologist or veteran bureaucratic
infighter to understand
this and report credibly (and I am neither)... which is precisely why, Ravi, I
considered Eric's
postings to be so much insubstantial dross.
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