Thus The Wall Street Journal today. “China’s economy outweighs every country in the world save the US,” elaborates the newspaper. “But on transparency, it remains distinctly an emerging market with murky politics, unreliable data, and opaque decision making.” How very true, and especially in the context of the economic turmoil the country is going through right now. What is more, China’s economy is a black box even to the Chinese authorities that are at its helm. This is how things will remain for quite some time, for the country is in the process of transition from socialism to capitalism that is rather opaque even to the few potentates at the very top of the Communist Party hierarchy. As a matter of fact, the process may take so long that the transition may eventually lead to feudalism rather than capitalism. And no kidding. Climate change will intervene in unpredictable ways, and capitalism coupled with what passes for democracy may turn out to be too fragile a social order for the challenges the party is now facing. In other words, the black box that is China’s economy is as black as black can be.