Jon Huntsman Sees Trouble Looming for China

Former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman said last week that, while China's economy is wide open, its oppressive political system lags far behind -- and that signals trouble for the monster emerging nation down the road.

"There's still that great divide between the economic class and the political class," Huntsman said, according to a recording of a phone call with a handful of university students around the country. The recording was obtained by The Huffington Post. "And at some point, as you get 300 and 400 million people who now become members of what will be the largest middle class in the world, they're going to have to make some really tough choices about how you bridge the economic and the political chasm, which is not easily done.

"If they don't do it, they're likely to have some sort of head-on collision, I would say four or five years into the future," Huntsman said.

"If you do not have political freedoms that run in parallel with economic development and reform -- if you don't have political reform -- at some point you're going to find yourself in a pretty precarious situation, one that will force you to address it as opposed to allowing you to evolve," he said.

Beijing's centralized control of the political system through the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, Huntsman said, has enabled China's leaders to stay "singularly focused" on building the country into an economic and military superpower.
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