It’s impossible to know how China’s government would poll with its people. The country remains a police state, and foreign pollsters aren’t exactly welcome. But China is not North Korea or Cuba. Journalists and foreigners can interact with ordinary Chinese and exchange views with them both publicly and privately. The accumulated anecdotal evidence suggests that China’s entrance onto the international political and economic stage serves as a point of great pride, and that many citizens credit their government with wise leadership.

The bigger worry is that China’s solid rebound from the global market meltdown is attracting admirers (and imitators) from across the developing world. China’s state-driven form of capitalism has become a threat to the future of free markets.

China’s leaders have created that model to ensure that markets don’t threaten their political power. They use state-owned oil companies to lock up the long-term energy supplies. They use other state-owned and privately owned but politically loyal companies to dominate other industries. They pay for all this with help from a pair of sovereign wealth funds created from the extra cash China earns from exports to America, Europe and Japan.

This trend threatens free markets for several reasons.