I have lived in Beijing for years and I think this is the most ruthlessly capitalistic place I have ever been to in my life. The gap between the rich and the poor is far more pronounced than it is in the West.
Just a few hours ago I walked past an extremely wealthy school owned by a corporation in Abu Dhabi that gives very expensive and high quality education for the richer Chinese who control the government. Along the same street, a little further down, there is a line of poor people in dusty clothes surrounded by police officers, and the poor people are waiting for interviews. What is the interview for? Because in their home provinces some corrupt official or police have done something wrong to them that they are seeking justice for.
In May when I was walking the same area I talked to two of them, a man and a woman, who told me that there son was murdered at his high school in Hunan, and the police covered it up and insisted that it was suicide. The father was working at a factory in …
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