China's 'New Socialist Countryside'

"After years and years of runaway growth in its eastern cities, suddenly China is furiously talking up the idea of building a 'new socialist countryside.' Putting money where his mouth is, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China stood before the National People's Congress this week and pledged a 14 percent increase in spending on the rural world."

"Mention of any 'new socialist countryside' begs the question of what became of the old socialist China countryside, and any examination of this subject should provoke deep suspicions -- not of Beijing's ability to carry out sweeping national campaigns, but rather of the results that its authoritarian centralism tends to produce."