The role of the exchange cannot be replaced by anything else, and the central government will not change its policy of pushing for economic reform. As Li speaks, the thud of jackhammers drives his point home. Shanghai, during the last five years, has remade itself, and its frantic pace of construction continued even as Asia's bubble burst in 1998. It is our bridge to the future. A bridge too far The bridge to the future, however, is yet to be secured.
Huge problems loom in the road to capitalism, both political and economic.
In the latter category, reformers have thus far been vexed by China's SOEs, the bitter fruit of decades of central planning. These behemoths tend to be inefficient, massively unprofitable, and, as often as not, corrupt and venal. Now, they are eating up the stock market. And despite all efforts, some 30 million Chinese are unemployed. That figure, incidentally, won't be found in any of the government pronouncements, which, when it comes to economic performance, can range from sanguine to ludicrous.