evolution

Bill Gates says that Chinese “capitalism” is not all that bad.

DAVOS, Switzerland, (AFP) - US software giant Bill Gates has high praise for China, which he says has created a brand-new form of capitalism that benefits consumers more than anything has in the past.

“It is a brand-new form of capitalism, and as a consumer its the best thing that ever happened,” Gates told an informal meeting late Friday at the World Economic Forum in this ski resort.

He characterised the Chinese model in terms of “willingness to work hard and not having quite the same medical overhead or legal overhead”.

Manufacturers have created “scale economies that are just phenomenal”, in part owing to companies there and elsewhere on the planet designing good products, Gates said.

Looking ahead, he added: “You know they haven’t run out of labor yet, the portion that can come out of the agriculture sector” was still considerable.

“It’s not like Korea, Korea got to a point where, boom, the wages went up a lot,” he said, adding “that’s good, you know, they got rich and now they have to add value at a different level.

“They’re closer to the United States in that sense than they are to where China is right now.”

Gates continued by heaping praise on the current generation of Chinese leaders.

“They’re smart,” he said with emphasis.

“They have this mericratic [sic] way of picking people for these government posts where you rotate into the university and really think about state allocation of resources and the welfare of the country and then you rotate back into some bureaucratic position.”

That rotation continued, Gates explained, and leaders were constantly subjected to various kinds of ratings.

“This generation of leaders is so smart, so capable, from the top down, particularly from the top down,” he concluded.

Gates added, “Just think about the opportunities, you know, like if you could avoid being run over by a tank!”

UPDATE [1/30 09:03]: In addition to “capitalism”, you can learn about “dissent” in China.

BEIJING - China kept a close eye on dissidents Sunday, a sign of the government’s unease over potentially widespread mourning over the death of ousted Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang, who fell from power for sympathizing with pro-democracy demonstrators in 1989.

Zhao, who died Jan. 17, was cremated Saturday at the main burial site for revolutionary heroes after a tightly controlled memorial service — below a state funeral in status — where only guests approved by the government were allowed.

Activists were banned from attending the service and were watched over by security agents guarding their homes and tapping their telephones.

The police “are still here today,” Ding Zilin, who co-founded a group representing families of those killed when China’s military crushed the democracy protests, said Sunday. “I saw them outside my home.”

Static filled the telephone call, which was then disconnected — a common sign that authorities were monitoring conversations.

Ren Wanding, another veteran dissident who spent 11 years in prison for advocating Western-style democracy, said he thinks police will be outside his home for at least another week.

“The logic behind the move is that even though Zhao Ziyang is cremated, we can still gather to discuss what happened,” Ren said. “They are trying to prevent us from expressing our opinion.”

Zhao, a former premier and head of the ruling Communist Party, was under house arrest from 1989 until his death and was rarely acknowledged by the government.

And the money quote, for our friend Mr. Gates:

Chinese leaders frequently cite the country’s economic success when asked about the military crackdown, in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed — implying that it was justified because of the political stability it brought.