The China Club not only venerates the imperial era-it is also dangerously irreverent. The Great Helmsman is surely spinning in his Mao-soleum. But they have. And if the China Club represents the most lavish face of the new China, it is not the only one. Coffee bars and outdoor cafes are sprouting across Beijing.
Capitalism is alive and kicking throughout the countryside.
The Chinese authorities can imprison as many dissidents as they want, but the genie is out of the bottle and won't be going back. All of this is good news for Hong Kong. China will resume sovereignty over Hong Kong at midnight June 30, recovering the once-barren rock it was forced to surrender to Britain after the first Opium War ended in the early 1840s. With its ideology broken beyond repair, the mainland government has made Hong Kong's repatriation the cornerstone of its effort to stoke nationalist sentiment. There is enormous excitement in China at the prospect of Hong Kong's return.