IF THERE was one thing that the world’s tycoons agreed on at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, it was that the Chinese state is a paragon of efficiency—especially compared with the doltish, venal clowns in Washington and Brussels. “Beijing really gets things done,” sighed one American chief executive. “Their government people are so much smarter: it’s terrifying,” enthused one of the world’s richest men. The chalets resounded with stories of contracts rapidly signed, roads speedily built and young engineers designing brilliant cars and software programs.
There is indeed much to admire about parts of the Chinese government. Over the past 30 years the regime has overseen perhaps the biggest increase in economic well-being ever, with several hundred million people moving into the middle class (even if the state had previously been the main thing that held them back). China is led by a group of people who take government enormously seriously there are countless stronger forces pushing in the opposite direction.
For all this, there is something of a Potemkin village about the Chinese state. It is, after all, not terribly hard for a dictatorship to build roads and railways faster than a democracy can. Multinational companies and the educated middle classes are doing well from the state, but the poorer majority in this ever more unequal country get a raw deal. And even if some of its leaders are trying to move closer to Singapore’s model,.
