Writing about the China she grew up in during the first half of the last century, Han Suyin noted: 'The warlords were a curious phenomenon born of the uncertain times, when no strong central government existed to keep law and order throughout the length and breadth of China.' Han was born in Beijing. Having lived through so much, arguably no other writer has understood China better. Today, with China's well-developed judicial system and rule of law, it would be unthinkable that local warlords could take power into their own hands again. Especially since the Chinese government is creating a 'harmonious society' for its people. Building a private school might be considered one step towards creating a more harmonious society. China's public education system certainly offers little to be desired, turning out zombies. So when a private investor tried to build a school in Changping - an outlying county of Beijing near the Great Wall at Badaling - one might think that the government would have encouraged this contribution to creating a better-educated, harmonious society. At first, the local Changping government did just that. It offered what seemed like adequate compensation to farmers for their land. The property was cleared, the school built and students thronged to it for a better education than anything the local government could provide. So, giving kids a better education should be a good thing, right? Not on the mainland, where greed is skewing the morals of society more than any cult could. The local people began to attack the school. Why? Because it had many students, which meant the investor must be making money. The local people were jealous, and decided to extort money. First they claimed that more compensation should have been given five years earlier, when the building was built. But the contracts had been signed with the government, and the people paid fairly and relocated. That argument didn't work with the locals, though: they remained adamant that since the school was obviously making money, the locals should have it. The Changping government did nothing to assuage the situation. Instead, it encouraged the locals to block the school entrance and prevent children from attending class, to extort money. It seems the officials wanted a share of the money. In any other country, this story might be unbelievable. But ask anyone in Beijing and they will scoff, because of the rash of similar incidents. Writer Han related how, after the Manchu central authority weakened, 'no unifying power had been established to take its place. In ancient Chinese history you may read how, when dynasties fell into decay this huge, unwieldy nation broke up into warring ... divided kingdoms, each with its own master'. The flip side of the same coin was also on display - in the same district of Changping - when a developer set out to take people's land without fair compensation. This time the local officials supported the project because they had inside interests. So they called out armed police, who stood arm-in-arm against the angry locals. Local government officials shouted to the police: 'We'll pay you 5,000 yuan for every skull cracked, and brain delivered to us.' This was not in a district of far-off Guangdong province, but in a suburb of Beijing. Han, in her perceptive writing, concluded: 'The warlords of our own time were an anachronism transposed from such a chapter of our history. Half-legendary figures - here a petty magistrate of the old regime; there an ambitious, uneducated minor officer; or a bandit with his army of desperadoes; or a shrewd old classical scholar; or a renegade revolutionist bought by foreign capital ... Power was for anyone who could seize it. It was his to use as he would, and his as long as he could hold it against the encroachment of his rivals.' Fortunately, times have changed, right? Laurence Brahm is a political economist, author, filmmaker and founder of Shambhala Foundation