James Waterton  of Samizdata looks at the jiggering of the books at China's banks and thinks it may be heading toward economic collapse and political disintegration.  As I speculated above and in my previous article, Chinese economic collapse will probably preface political revolution. This is in itself an interesting, though disturbing proposition. What would post—communist China look like? Firstly, I should mention that a democratic revolution seems fanciful at best. There is no ANC—type shadow opposition waiting in the wings. The Party is the State, and the Party brooks no opposition. Here are what I consider to be the two most likely outcomes: 1) The military will overthrow the Party. If the banking sector collapses, so too will large chunks of the state—owned industrial sector that are afloat solely due to loans from the state—owned banks. Millions upon millions will be out of work — millions more will lose their pensions and...(Read Full Post)