Mark Steyn is a very funny conservative essayist. If you don't support the war in Iraq and gun-owning rights, or you favor gay marriage, his writings will send your blood pressure soaring, but he'll keep you entertained as you get enraged.

His latest column in the UK's Spectator magazine takes a look at China, and concludes that things are not so bad here, even though he can't resist using the redneck word "ChiComs":

Obviously, as a fully paid-up North Country gun nut, I wouldn’t personally want to trade rural New Hampshire for rural China. Nor am I entirely happy that Western consumers have helped the ChiComs develop the world’s first economically viable form of communism. But these are the facts on the ground, and I can’t do anything about them. One ignores reality at one’s peril, especially with China...

....I’d say the Chinese are doing it the right way round: historically, economic liberty has preceded political liberty. At this point, the Politburo would rise up as one and say, whoa, man, hold up, who said anything about political liberty? But realistically how much longer can they hold it at bay?...

...The real foreign-policy challenges in the immediate future are the stagnant EU, poor doomed Russia and China’s incoherent market-communism. If you were betting on only one happy ending, I’d take China.

LINK:
The Spectator: 'My money’s on China' by Mark Steyn
Wikipedia: Mark Steyn
Steyn Online