Thus the Financial Times today. “Country’s salt monopoly, in place since Seventh Century Before Christ, set to be dismantled,” explains the newspaper. Wow! The Communist Party retained the national salt monopoly after it came to power in 1949. The reason for abandoning it right now is that the government is doing its best to pursue market reforms and streamline bureaucracy. As witnessed by Venice in Europe, salt was of enormous importance once upon a time, but things have changed. It is a cheap commodity now. At any rate, China surprises with news of this ilk because it has never experienced a total and complete dismemberment of its civilization, as in Europe after the fall of the Roman empire. After all, the Venetian salt monopoly goes back only to the Twelfth Century After Christ, nineteen centuries after the Chinese. The continuity of Chinese civilization is occasionally dazzling, and the salt monopoly is only a small example of it. No wonder many Chinese feel superior to Europeans, let alone Americans or Russians. Nouveau riches one and all. Ending the salt monopoly that goes back twenty-eight centuries may be just to rub everyone else’s noses.