The Occupy Wall Street protests in the U.S. have drawn increasing attention in China, where media figures and China’s voluble online community are arguing over what it means for the U.S.

Earlier this week, a small group of pensioners in China’s central Henan province even rallied in support of the U.S. protesters, though nostalgia for Mao Zedong’s bygone era appeared to be a main driver.

“Resolutely supporting the American people’s mighty ‘Wall Street revolution,’” read an unfurled banner during the demonstration Thursday at a park in the provincial capital of Zhengzhou, according to video footage posted online as well as the leftist website Utopia. The website said several hundred people took part.

It seems safe to say–as Obama administration officials debate whether to adopt a more populist tone and appeal to the protesters as a voting bloc—that this is not what they had in mind.

Based on the online video, it was a quiet protest. Some of the old men fumbled with their red arm bands, which called for world-wide solidarity. Many simplly stood quietly, hands clasped behind their backs.

“United, proletarians around the world,” was one of the slogans the pensioners chanted.

The Henan demonstration was a far cry from Mao’s anti-rightist campaigns during the early years of the Communist party’s rule, but a deeper discussion has been brewing within China’s media and Internet about the protests.

The protests have become big news in China and have been closely followed by the local media. They have also drawn mixed reactions. Some have been pleased to see frictions in the U.S., showing that its occasionally finger-waving democratic rival can be less than perfect. Still others sympathized with the protesters, which is perhaps understandable in a nation grappling with its own surging brand of capitalism and where major institutions hold so much power.

Late last month, a strongly worded op-ed appeared in the state-run China Daily newspaper accusing the U.S. media of ignoring the demonstrations. The piece, penned by Chen Weihua, a senior newspaper staffer based in New York, said major media companies in the U.S. had imposed a “blackout” on coverage of the protests.

Why have the journalists “who made their names covering various protests around the world, suddenly become silent in reporting the mass rally?” Mr. Chen wrote.

The editorial drew a heated response from one of China’s most popular political bloggers, Yang Hengjun, who said growing media coverage in the U.S. demonstrated otherwise.

“For a paper like China Daily, supported by taxpayers, to publish such an irresponsible editorial — well, drawing the scorn of others is one thing, but if you blatantly lie and deceive to this degree, that reflects badly on China’s government! It reflects badly on the Chinese people! It is completely shameful!” Mr. Yang wrote (translated to English here). “Perhaps the author harbors ulterior motives, wanting his false news to turn the attention of all Chinese who know how to conduct a basic online search to real news about non-democratic countries.”

And on Sina Weibo, the popular microblogging service, where on any given day it’s not difficult to find talk of democracy and political reform, the protests presented a chance for some to challenge the U.S. political and economic systems.

“American democracy is serving who?” one user wrote. “Are the common folks truly able to enjoy freedom, equality, and democracy?”

–Brian Spegele. Follow him on Twitter @bspegele.

In recent years, China has re-invigorated its support for leading state-owned enterprises in sectors it considers important to “economic security,” explicitly looking to foster globally competitive national champions.

Economic development has been more rapid in coastal provinces than in the interior, and approximately 200 million rural laborers and their dependents have relocated to urban areas to find work.

The government has also focused on foreign trade as a major vehicle for economic growth.

Some economists believe that Chinese economic growth has been in fact understated during much of the 1990s and early 2000s, failing to fully factor in the growth driven by the private sector and that the extent at which China is dependent on exports is exaggerated.

The two most important sectors of the economy have traditionally been agriculture and industry, which together employ more than 70 percent of the labor force and produce more than 60 percent of GDP.

A report by UBS in 2009 concluded that China has experienced total factor productivity growth of 4 per cent per year since 1990, one of the fastest improvements in world economic history.

By the early 1990s these subsidies began to be eliminated, in large part due to China’s admission into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, which carried with it requirements for further economic liberalization and deregulation.

China now ranks as the fifth largest global investor in outbound direct investment (ODI) with a total volume of $56.5 billion, compared to a ranking of 12th in 2008, the Ministry of Commerce said on Sunday.

From January to June, the ODI in financial sectors was up by 44 percent to $17.9 billion, and in July alone, the ODI recorded $8.91 billion, the highest this year.

China reiterated the nation’s goals for the next decade – increasing market share of pure-electric and plug-in electric autos, building world-competitive auto makers and parts manufacturers in the energy-efficient auto sector as well as raising fuel-efficiency to world levels.

Although China is still a developing country with a relatively low per capita income, it has experienced tremendous economic growth since the late 1970s.

Despite initial gains in farmers’ incomes in the early 1980s, taxes and fees have increasingly made farming an unprofitable occupation, and because the state owns all land farmers have at times been easily evicted when croplands are sought by developers.

Except for the oasis farming in Xinjiang and Qinghai, some irrigated areas in Inner Mongolia and Gansu, and sheltered valleys in Tibet, agricultural production is restricted to the east.

Due to improved technology, the fishing industry has grown considerably since the late 1970s.

There are also extensive iron-ore deposits; the largest mines are at Anshan and Benxi, in Liaoning province.

China is among the world’s four top producers of antimony, magnesium, tin, tungsten, and zinc, and ranks second (after the United States) in the production of salt, sixth in gold, and eighth in lead ore.

In addition, implementation of some reforms was stalled by fears of social dislocation and by political opposition, but by 2007 economic changes had become so great that the Communist party added legal protection for private property rights (while preserving state ownership of all land) and passed a labor law designed to improve the protection of workers’ rights (the law was passed amid a series of police raids that freed workers engaged in forced labor).

There are railroads to North Korea, Russia, Mongolia, and Vietnam, and road connections to Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Myanmar.

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China Takes Note As Wall Street Gets Occupied