....potentially back up his claim. I am wondering what the experts' (like of ISO/Poonte dais') observations are on the area of less glamorous issues of human development in China" Echoes, This thread owes a lot to Poonte bro. So all credits to him. Being a bit younger than him (in age and in the IR stuff), I benifit a lot from his views too. Just as for everybody else, its been a learning experience for me too. Here's my answer to your questions. China has now adopted a market economy, which means, the previous totalitarian state is not required anymore. I use the word totalitarian in a strict political sense.[Totalitarian state: A highly centralized state organization]. Since the Soviet style planned economy was discarded a long time ago, there was not much sense in having a totalitarian state anyways. Now the society and the governmnet is following what the western politicals sicentists call the "liberal path". The society is in a transition phase now. China has more freedom than many officially "liberal" democracies in the world. Of course, you cannot compare the situation in Western Europe and China, because the former has a history of 200 years of democracy and free-market, but the situation in China is not as bad as it is portrayed in the western media every now and then. To sum up, the Chinese have already started democratizing, but its a different form of democracy. They are strengthening the institutions necessary to safeguard democracy and the rule of law. Minxin Pei, a scholar at Princeton (now at Carnegie Endowmnet for International Peace) and a renowned East Asia Expert in America has written an artcile on this- "Is China Democratizing?: (Foreign Affairs Jan/Feb 1998 jasto lagcha malai.. ). In health care etc. they have made a great leap forward. Its not easy to solve all the problems at once in a country which stretches from Siberia to Karakoram, Sagarmatha to Vietnam.. but they are making efforts. The other question is more related to eonomy, and I have to admit that economics to me is a whole new language. But as far as I understand, I think the scholar who said that China does not need America or any other country for trade does not quite make sense..because without foreign trade and foreign investment, your foreign currecny reserve will go down, and that is not a good sign if you want a stable economy. Plus China will have a hard time buying raw materials in the international market if it has no $$. Plus, in this age of WTO and globalziation, no country even imagines to remain isolated. The policy makers in China will not do anything that will jeopardize their developmenet process. Mero views hai...I can be totally wrong.. so please do cross check, verify the informanation from your own sources before coming to any conclusion on this.