In the endless back and forth, it was apparent that the government I often imagined as being all powerful and all seeing could be powerless and conflicted when it came to local businessmen and factory owners.

Even before I saw this article I was discussing with one of my friends here tonight that Westerners (such as this NYT reporter), often have a distorted view of the Chinese power structure. Westerners often assume strict top-down rule over here when in fact China suffers from what might best be called "klepto-federalism" -- federalism without rule of law. (This might be also thought of as a legacy of warlordism that China has never truly shaken loose.)

Localities regularly interpret the law as they see fit, and businessmen collude with said localities to bend the law any way their guanxi (connections network) allows. While the central government should do more to stop it, most abuses do run contrary to policy and are condemned when the central government has the resources to do so.

For example, those who've followed China news recently might be aware of the child slavery ring uncovered in southern China this month. The local government in Henan declared that the beatings, murders, kidnappings, and slave wages were just a matter of "illegal employment," rather than an eruption of evil, and the central government, realizing the political implications of such verbiage, jumped on the officials quickly and condemned the slavery for what it was.

In all, the Times story is freaky, but not so unusual if you know more about China.