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Official: Bridge Linking Beijing and Foreign Business Communities Development Smoother, Faster; Economic Structure Continued to Improve Foreign Banks Granted More Freedom in Currency Business Number Verbatim

Editor's note

Uncertainties are the bane of any market and are never without their price effects anywhere in the world. So a month filled with serious pronouncements on everything from the reform of China's income distribution system to restrictions on some of foreign investments in China's property market have not gone unnoticed. 

Some responses to these actions reveal a serious problem in thinking about modern China that we see in many foreign and even in some domestic thinkers. There's hardly any doubt that a double-standard applies when regulatory actions taken by Chinese authorities to accommodate changes in domestic and international market situations are considered.

If readjusting or consolidating markets are going backward, then the United States, Europe and other developed countries are going "backward" daily or even hourly as market players adjust to constantly changing realities, including indisputably negative behaviours within various markets.

It is time for students of things Chinese to be more balanced in commenting on China and the things the Chinese authorities do. Correcting income disparities is likely a good thing for any government to keep in mind (see story on page 20). Keeping the property market affordable for the average Chinese while opening it to legal foreign investment--is that a bad idea? (See page 16.)

Internet phenomena such as blogging (see page 28) are growing by leaps and bounds, and the government is rapidly adjusting to this new reality. The cup is more than half full if you consider the world of information available to the Chinese people and to foreign residents via the Internet, which was unthinkable five or ten years ago. Who could have imagined Bokee.com or Sister Hibiscus in the 1990s?

In this issue, we have tried to bring some perspective to some of these issues of importance to the business community concerned with China. We hope this will be of benefit to you.

editor