Bad habits die hard.
It is an old saying and one that applies to the Chinese as much as anyone else. Dazzled by the apparent success of industry policies in South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, despite the ensuing economic crisis, many officials are drawing the wrong conclusions. It is true, they opine in private, that Mao's economic schemes were an unmitigated disaster. It is equally true, they willingly concede, that central planning has failed elsewhere and would never succeed anyway. But South Korea and Singpore have demonstrated that there is a role for intelligent state guidance.