Agreed -- honestly this is a topic of constant debate with regards to China and I think most can agree that things have improved significantly in the past decad

Agreed -- honestly this is a topic of constant debate with regards to China and I think most can agree that things have improved significantly in the past decade. Sure 700 million peasants, but it was even more and as China continues its rapid industrialization, more will leave the farms for the cities. In fact that's already happening, so much so that the issue is primarily how to deal with population influx. I mean if you look into American history it's a lot of repetition. Packingtown / chinese sweatshops. It's the same thing over again! Leaving the farm for the industrialized city...yeesh. A choice between "ignorant peasants" or "smart people looking after everyone's interests" is simply irrelevant / nonexistent. The problem right now is developing infrastructure to modernize a country.