Its prosperity was built entirely on foreign skills, technology and investment. All it provided was land for factories and a massive cache of underpaid labor. When challenged by companies from developed countries, domestic enterprises were rarely competitive. Its self-appointed representatives imposed a litany of restrictions to protect key industries from foreign forces, but proved unable to protect them from themselves. Even the banks and the biggest utilities could only remain stable because of public subsidies. In spite of their titles, managers and officials from the top to the bottom did not work for either their companies or for the government. Now that it was becoming a fat animal, everyone wanted a piece of meat. They spent their days refining their knives and cutting as much as they could for themselves. The clumsy ones were sometimes punished. The best cut so well their knives were always sharp, and no one noticed anything missing. Many sections were already dead, but the animal did not know it yet.
records of the xiaoping era
