Be it a huge construction project or a complicated disaster relief effort, no one can argue that things cannot be done strikingly fast and without opposition on the mainland.
That is the benefit of running a nation that still has links with its not too distant command-economy past. In the current global economic crisis, that ability to order men, machine and money at will is coming in handy.
A case in point is Beijing's planned lifeline for cash-strapped small enterprises. It may not have the same urgency as earthquake reconstruction, but top officials are taking the task just as seriously.
By ordering banks to open the lending floodgates to small and medium-sized enterprises, Beijing is hoping to ease a credit crunch that has already seen thousands of businesses go to the wall. The question is whether the same brand of Chinese speed and efficiency will be effective in an area where banks are increasingly seen as their own masters.
Despite contributing the lion's share of economic output, SMEs face numerous difficulties in securing bank financing. Large state-owned enterprises have traditionally been given priority over smaller firms when loans are doled out. Loans to small, often family-run, businesses, are also seen as more risky.
Officially, that reluctance has changed since a directive from the top that loans to small firms must be freed up to help them ride out the economic storm. But like many things on the mainland, propaganda sometimes bears little relationship to reality. Insiders fear that serious difficulties remain for banks trying to make a U-turn from their previous tight-fisted attitude towards SMEs. Small employers contribute 60 per cent of industrial output and three quarters of urban employment on the mainland. But many are in trouble.
