Politics

Abstract

In March, 2009, the Chinese Communist Party (the Party) decided on its political position for the next set of budgets, and the next set of strategies for retaining power. The crises of 2007 and 2008 have been much worse in their global repercussions than the failure of a few Western banks could have foretold: Chinese factories closed rapidly and a return to the fields and to family elders by migrant workers is commonplace. Particularly hard hit is southern China, with factory redundancies in their thousands. Closed factories have reversed the past rapid growth in Hong Kong’s exports and booming container trades. Ships that carried those cargoes are now anchored around the islands that dot the Pearl River delta — awaiting orders.

This realm, half-shadowed, China’s empery.

(Camoens, The Luciad X.181)