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Article: Where the old China lives on. (Manchuria, China)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- January 14, 1995
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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OFFICIALS point to the lorryloads of strawberries being sold in the bitter-cold streets of Dalian as an augury of better times to come. Private enterprise, they say, is at last taking root in Manchuria.
China's north-east needs such signs, for more than any other part of the country it is still frozen in the era of state ownership. That makes it not only China's most sluggish region, but also its most dangerous: the reform of state enterprises, which the central government seems determined to pursue, will hit Manchurians hardest.
Last spring the country's economics supremo, Zhu Rongji, went up to Heilongjiang, the Manchurian province most dominated by state ...