Yes, Politics Exist In China

Noam Scheiber has a smart take on America's biggest stockholder:

[T]o the extent the administration has a problem with our largest creditor, it may be less with the Chinese leadership than with the Chinese people (the opposite of the dynamic that prevails on issues like human rights). The average Chinese--whether educated or not--looks at his country's swollen coffers and wonders why that $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves isn't helping to make life easier in China--which, after all, remains a country of enormous privation. More importantly, he's entitled to voice his opinion. Although the Chinese regime is famously quick to stifle political dissent, it tends to allow criticism of the country's economic policies, seeing it as a useful safety valve.