Best of Culture

Sixty percent of the world’s population live in Asia, even though the continent covers 30 percent of the Earth’s land area. Our explorations of Asian culture over the last two decades have brought us from the jungles of Sri Lanka to the samurais of Edo

Sixty percent of the world’s popuation live in Asia, even though the continent covers 30 percent of the Earth’s land area. Our explorations of Asian culture over the last two decades have brought us from the jungles of Sri Lanka to the samurais of Edo

Revisited

No.126 Issue 4/2017

Title

The Hammer, Sickle, and a Love for Money

An apparent contradiction, Chinese communism has thrived as a market economy and situated the most populous country in the world as a rising superpower. But can it last?

Text & Photos

Zigor Aldama Don’t say “communism” – say “socialism with Chinese characteristics”. That’s the official euphemism to describe China’s apparently contradictory social, political, and economic system: a one-party state with an all-powerful government which controls the judiciary and the National Assembly, and a thriving market economy where rapidly growing private and foreign businesses have to bear off-limits sectors where state-owned enterprises (SOE) benefit from monopoly or oligopoly structures. It’s also a country where all land belongs to the state, and citizens pay for the right to use that land for 70 years. But rampant speculation is blowing the property bubble bigger than ever seen before in China’s real estate market. The cocktail is being shaken up: Individualism and consumerism have given the boot to old-fashioned fraternity and collectivism.

A Shen Jindong oil painting at the Beijing Art Gallery shows an infantilised vision of the Chinese military, portraying China’s “soft power”