In Line Behind a Billion People: How Scarcity will Define China’s Ascent in the Next Decade

4. Welfare: Socialism with Chinese...actually no, not socialism at all

An otherwise uneventful spring afternoon in Harbin #1 Hospital was shattered when a 17-year-old brandishing a fruit knife barged into an administrative office. Li Mengnan attacked the closest bystander, a 28-year-old medical intern named Wang Hao. Absorbed in his studies and caught off guard, Wang had no time to react as Li’s knife punctured his carotid artery, a wound that proved fatal later in the day. Three other office staff also sustained injuries while fending off Li’s attack. When the police found Li, he was in the hospital emergency room, patching a neck wound he had inflicted upon himself in an apparent suicide attempt.

Li, a teenager from rural Heilongjiang Province, ...