This is a series,

This is CBS, I on the world.

I'm John Bachelor with Gordon Chang at Gordon G Chang.

We go to Asia to our colleague Fraser Howie, co-author of Red Capitalism,

the Fragile Financial Foundation of China's extraordinary rise.

Fraser, a good day to you in the Financial Times.

The esteemed columnist Martin Wolf,

summarizes a recent trip to China that he met and a book written by a professor at

Chingaw University, speaking of the present China, the troubles of the economy, under

Shejin Ping, and comparing it not to the Soviet system that fell apart, the

fragility of the Soviet system, but in fact to the Imperial Chinese system,

we're in charge, but you take care of the local business.

We're in charge here in the

forbidden city. What do you make of the

presentation made by Mr. Wolf of the professor's book? Good evening to you,

Fraser. Hello, John. It was certainly a fascinating article and I thought a couple of things, so I jumped out at you.

I think to some extent there is an argument to say that today's Communist China is more an imperialistic, dynastic type of China without a bloodline but instead with the party line.

It's certainly very different in that sense from the communist, the Soviet model of Russia.

Although it's interesting in that same article,

the author David Lee in his book says that actually over a long

thousand year period of dynastic history, the per capita GDP of the average

Chinese actually fell.

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