November 10

In a few days China will announce its new leadership team.
Not after a billion dollar election as in the USA,
but after months of back-door deals by power brokers

If only the Beijing leadership would bit the bullet of political reform.

An idea for political reform in China - heard a couple of years ago:

A proposal for a two house system of government, at provincial and national level....with the lower house being elected ...and, for the time being...the upper house being made up of members of the Communist Party....until time right for upper house also to be elected

This is more or less what is happening now....a two-tier system...the government and the Party....e.g. each province/state has a Provincial Governor and a Provincial Party Chief.

But the difference would be that the lower tier would be elected by the people instead of being appointed by the Party

A pilot project could be tried in several provinces...whereby the provincial administration would try out the above model.....special political zones akin to special economic zones

Idea people said they would prefer elected representatives to be independents rather than belonging to parties as in USA/UK. They said that recent USA mid-terms (students knew about all the negative advs...) show how the party system is more concerned with getting power rather than producing candidates who care for the people/country

Idea people also made proposal that the national premier and provincial governors would come from the lower houses and be elected by them. The national president and state party chiefs would come from the upper house

Misleading figures: some reports say China's economy is growing again.
But that's not what one hears from people on the ground.
One hears that factories and businesses are continuing to close down,
while house prices continue to soar (inflated by rich people looking for holiday homes or investments).
One hears that the recent biannual Guangzou Fair, a barometer of economic life if China, had a 38% downturn in sales.