RISING CHINA

When the Berlin wall came down, it appeared an era ended.

Communism very clearly could no longer be defended.

Yet soon came commentators who resented this aspersion

Suggesting that the failure was the dreary Russian version.

In China, on the other hand, once Mao had departed

A different kind of system by the leadership was started

Though they failed to make a move toward the freedom of expression

Economically from Marx there came a very great digression.

 
While everything  must fall within the party’s  scheme of planning

There was freedom to invest without the penalty of banning.

You could make a lot of money, earn an income truly royal

As long as in your politics you stayed completely loyal.

So here we have a system Comrade Xi’s articulating

Which to Marx and Lenin’s teaching would be totally negating.

And in case you think their challenge to our system’s only minor

I suggest you check those labels that inform you “Made in China.”

Since the nation that they come from numbers 1.4 in billions,

Far beyond our paltry  count of 3.3 in millions,

The prospect that we face now grows increasingly persistent

In GNP they’ll lead us in a time that’s not too distant.

I must confess this prospect isn’t one I find appealing.

Already there’s corruption and too much wheeler-dealing.

 Even worse that that, I find it terribly offensive

That their censoring the internet is very comprehensive.

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Moreover to Hong Kong they’re showing less and less forbearance

Treating them like children under disapproving parents.

So now instead of living with a somewhat different system

They’re bearing down on anyone who’s likely to resist ‘em.

Then they face the stigma of the start of the pandemic,

And find themselves to be the butt of Trump’s “kung flu” polemic.

Though they seem to have controlled the plague before it spread much faster,

Wuhan will long be thought of as an image of disaster.

Well, Marx and private enterprise, in time we’ll find out whether

China’s way turns out to be the best of both together.

I have to say the notion seems me a trifle mystic

To bet your entire future on free markets communistic.