The problem with China

[welsh]

The problem with China is, strangely, honesty.

I mean they give their people blood tainted with AIDS, and don't tell them.

They get SARS and other illnesses and forget to tell the rest of the world that they have a plague problem.

They boast about their wealth, but they ignore the growing number of poor.

Now pollution?

How can you trust China?

Ok, fair enough that W's America has a problem with transparency and a media that is increasingly becoming co-opted into the machine. But really, this is fucked up.

China’s reluctance to come clean

Nov 28th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

China has ordered a probe into the toxic river spill that led to millions of people having their water supplies cut for several days. The government has also apologised to Moscow for the pollution, which is heading towards the Russian border city of Khabarovsk. The accident could cause political damage as well as physical harm

I certainly hope so. Because the idea of these two being happy neighbors seems rather contradictory.

A PUBLIC apology from China is an exceptionally rare event. But as a slick of toxic water makes its way along the half-frozen Songhua River towards the Russian city of Khabarovsk, the country’s leadership is saying sorry. This is not, however, to be read as a sign of an imminent end to the secretive culture that for days attempted to cover up one of China’s worst ever pollution spills into its waterways.

As if Russia didn't have enough environmntal problems, now it gets the Chinese problems.

The November 13th discharge of some 100 tonnes of benzene and nitrobenzene from a petrochemical plant in the north-eastern province of Jilin could end up causing political damage as well as physical harm. So far, at least, no casualties have been reported, apart from five people killed in the explosion that created the slick (though local officials have a great incentive to cover up such details). On Sunday November 27th, officials in Harbin, capital of the neighbouring province of Heilongjiang, reactivated the city’s water supply after the slick passed by without major incident. The chemicals can be very dangerous if inhaled or ingested in sufficient concentrations. To reassure jittery residents, the provincial governor, Zhang Zuoji, was shown on television drinking a glass of tap water pumped from Harbin’s stretch of the river (which is hardly clean at the best of times but is now at least said to have safe levels of the leaked chemicals).

And then he had his stomach pumped.

But as the 80km (50-mile) slick moves on downstream towards Khabarovsk, 700km to the northeast, where it is expected to arrive by early December, there could be significant political fallout. China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, visited Harbin on Saturday, four days after the city had turned off all tap water to prevent contamination. As many residents queued for water delivered to neighbourhoods by truck, Mr Wen pledged that investigations would be conducted to determine responsibility for the disaster.

Which makes you wonder, if these are the problems you see, what kinds of problems exist that you don't see?

PetroChina, a giant state-controlled company listed on the New York and Hong Kong stock exchanges, has apologised for the explosion at a factory run by Jilin Petrochemical, a subsidiary. Officials in Jilin, who kept quiet for days about the slick, have also said sorry. So too has China’s foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing, to Russia’s government. But officials in Harbin have been defensive about their decision, even after they discovered the approaching threat, to keep the spill secret from residents until the last minute. At first they said the water supply would be turned off for “maintenance”.

China has a habit of dishing out blame after big accidents, but remains unwilling to address the culture of secretiveness that can aggravate such problems. Last year, PetroChina’s chairman, Ma Fucai, stepped down following an accident at one of his company’s plants in the south-western city of Chongqing in December 2003, which killed more than 200 people in a cloud of hydrogen sulfide gas. Earlier that year, the mayor of Beijing and the health minister were sacked for mishandling an outbreak of SARS, an often fatal respiratory disease. Yet despite official admissions that the disease could have been better controlled if the public had been informed more promptly, Chinese officials have been reluctant, at least until very recently, to be fully open about the spread of bird flu.

Which is the fucking problem. No one blames the system, they blame the men.
Cultural Revolution, Great Leap Forward- the problem was Mao. But fuck! Mao was just a man. It took a system to allow those catastrophe's to happen. Just like its a system that allows these problems.

A little transparency is a healthy thing.

It is highly unlikely that those sacked during the SARS outbreak were as responsible as they were portrayed to be. Higher-level officials were almost certainly just as culpable, but were spared because of their rank. What is unclear in the case of the Songhua River incident is whether the central authorities were aware of the extent of the problem before it was finally revealed last week. The prime minister did not openly apologise for any central-government failings during his visit to Harbin. The likelihood is that blame will mainly be apportioned lower down the line.

Of course not because the government is never wrong. Nor is the problem. Just the people.

Sounds like W blaming Abu Grabass on the soldiers and not the officers.

As during the SARS outbreak, China’s state-controlled media have been unusually feisty in their criticisms of the way news about the river pollution has been handled. In 2003, some optimists believed that China would emerge from SARS with a government less inclined to knee-jerk secrecy and possibly more tolerant of media exposure of its shortcomings. Many Chinese journalists say they have been disappointed. As the slick moved along the Songhua river towards Harbin, it passed through Songyuan, a big city in Jilin, without a word of warning being issued to the public (though water supplies were suspended). It may be a long time before there is a full accounting of any harm done.

Another lesson in the price of secrecy?

 

[pennyliu123]

OK, there are some problems with transparency in China, but I don't think you have an all-sided view to China.
I don't know where you get the information about China, but I think quite some of them is not objective. You just think about a country, which have over 1.3 billion people, but have not do any harm to the world in decades, they have struggled out of a very hard time and tried to get better lifes. I don't want to deny the problems, but you should know, China is getting better, not worse, nor dangerous.
30 years ago, there could not be a Chinese in China to say these words to you, but now there is one, this is a sample of progress already.

 

[welsh]

OK, there are some problems with transparency in China, but I don't think you have an all-sided view to China.
I don't know where you get the information about China, but I think quite some of them is not objective. You just think about a country, which have over 1.3 billion people, but have not do any harm to the world in decades, they have struggled out of a very hard time and tried to get better lifes. I don't want to deny the problems, but you should know, China is getting better, not worse, nor dangerous.
30 years ago, there could not be a Chinese in China to say these words to you, but now there is one, this is a sample of progress already.

Let's see-
-Get a dangerous flu and don't tell the world about it.
-Create a dangerous spill and don't tell the neighbor about it.
-Higher levels of inequality than ever, while China enjoys its first billionaires and sends people to space.
-Mischief Reef suggests that rather than negotiate problems in the South China Sea, China would prefer to resolve its problems with a military Fait Accompli.
- Send missiles over Taiwan? Oh yeah- because democracy is a bad thing.
- We can ignore China exporting revolution to its neighbors or even the occupation of Tibet, if you like.
- 1979, invades Vietnan.
- Throughout the 1980s gives money to the Khymer Rouge, a group which wiped out 1/3 of its own population, because the Khymer's are fighting Vietnam.
- How undervalued is China's currency now?
- How much support can China give North Korea? Never mind that N.Korea is playing for nuclear blackmail.

And it's curious that just about every Chinese student I know at my University is connected to the Chinese Communist Party through family connections. Yeah- that's an equal society.

I keep hearing that China is getting better, and its quality of life is improving in the cities as people enjoy more luxury goods. But I keep hearing that China means well.

But where's the proof?

But it seems that China has a strange mix of socialism, capitalism, and authoritarian political control- and that was a mix last seen in German in the 1930s.

 

[victor]

Going to China, I saw something I didn't really expect. It makes me wonder if Chinese people aren't inherently stupid, or at least naive. For instance, every single Chinese person wants a car. That's about a billion cars in the next 20 years. The whole "Global warming" and "runaway greenhouse effect" doesn't seem to mean too much to them.

Neither does slave labour, spending 80% of the budget on the Army and Space program, or invading other countries and murdering it's inhabitants.

The question here is, how are Chinese leaders? Are THEY too naive and blinded by their struggle to be the equals of the US, in terms of power? Or are they aware of all this, and are totally satisfied with their own people suffering?

One thing I noticed also is the extremely corrupted political titan. I know the US and the EU are also very corrupted, but it's nothing compared to the Chinese Party.

The attitude displayed by that country makes me sick, but I can't really blame the Chinese people, as they've been fed this bullshit for over 50 years now.

Welsh, it's true that every Chinese student abroad has a family connected to the Party. Only about 2% of the population is getting richer, while the poorer are getting poorer

It would be retarded to even think that China is communist, it's more like an extremely capitalistic oligarchy, full of hypocrites.


*edit*

A good example of this is the 150 or so miners dying in a coal mine collapse on sunday, and the aftermath.

 

[Brother None]

Going to China, I saw something I didn't really expect. It makes me wonder if Chinese people aren't inherently stupid, or at least naive. For instance, every single Chinese person wants a car. That's about a billion cars in the next 20 years. The whole "Global warming" and "runaway greenhouse effect" doesn't seem to mean too much to them.

Every Americans wants at least 3 cars.

But then global warmings is *their* fault because there're so many of them?

Tchyeah.

Neither does slave labour, spending 80% of the budget on the Army and Space program, or invading other countries and murdering it's inhabitants.

No. They're getting better, though, it's true. Hard to deny it. I mean...they're not getting worse.

The question here is, how are Chinese leaders? Are THEY too naive and blinded by their struggle to be the equals of the US, in terms of power? Or are they aware of all this, and are totally satisfied with their own people suffering?

Go for the latter.

 

[victor]

I know the US does the same, but do the Chinese HAVE to follow? Once you have a habit of having a dozen cars per inhabitant, it's very hard to get rid of it. If politicians cared, which they don't, they'd encourage more public transportation (don't get me wrong, it's very good in both Beijing and Shanghai, but it could use improvement). Why people still want cars is beyond me. Maybe it's just the "we want to look more western" thing.

 

[calculon000]

Americans don't really want 3 cars per person, just two cars in every garage for a nuclear family of 2 adults and 2.5 children, right?

Also, I'd just like to say the following:

About 800 million Chinese are peasants in the countryside. (source)
That's 61% of the 1,306,313,812 who live there. (source)

 

[Starseeker]

ROFL

I think the mere mention of the word China brings up too many stereotypes to be counted.

We already have polar opposite views in less than 6 replies.



It also doesn't help that one of them doesn't speak Chinese and the other doesn't really understand English too well.

I have no doubt that the most news that the Chinese people get is BS, a better, and more sophisticated one taught by the HK media and Rubert at that. But the trouble is that a lot of westerners are fed BS about China for years at the hands of the western media as well.

SH*T, it's 430 am, and I have to work at 8. I will continue this later.

 

[Roshambo]

Every Americans wants at least 3 cars.

And an SUV to drive in town, lowered, and useless in the snow or any terrain for which the damn things are designed for.

The question here is, how are Chinese leaders? Are THEY too naive and blinded by their struggle to be the equals of the US, in terms of power? Or are they aware of all this, and are totally satisfied with their own people suffering?

Go for the latter.

Agreed. Sadly enough, the same applies to the US leadership as well, but instead of national profit, they are just doing it for personal gain.

Mmmm, Capitalism!

 

[4too]

Sympathy For The ... Capitalist / Kar Kulture

Sympathy For The ... Capitalist




R.:

And an SUV to drive in town, lowered, and useless in the snow or any terrain for which the damn things are designed for.

Perhaps this is one more worldly evidence of ""Intelligent Design""(TM).

This predestined mental template in ""GAWd's KUNtree"'"(TM) that incorporates a fatal flaw in EVERY - one time - good deal.
I submit for your consideration, ... that this BE the line of attack that will hammer the partisan's of liberal scientific dogma into the dust bin of quantitative marketing theocracy.

The one sure thing CERTAIN in the nature of human endeavors is the event horizon of ........................... FUBAR.

Seems SO true, real ''enough'' to the universal experience of horse shoes, hand grenades, and sh't fights, that it be a ... LAW OF NATURE!!!!!

We can work out the ''King James'' (TM) syntax later, for marketing in THE B. BELT.

If a data stream was cooked up with a deviously obscure quasi mathematical ontology, say like quantum mechanics, and mighty missiles of jargon and attack ads from third party associates go nuclear, we may present this as "GAWd's" true clue to those of "Free Will"(TM).

Since the only "Values"(TM) now, AS SEEN ON Fox TV, are Permanent Republican Majority Values, then the ''attack proofs'' will over run any latent liberal scientific partisans. The only Darwinist left will be the social ones. Hunkering in fox holes of denial, ready for conversion.

WHEN we win the Nobel for this we'll split the prize money. But by then the lucrative spin offs will dwarf such chicken feed.

After that PR I trust the whole "GAWd's KUNtree'(TM) line will accelerate at a MARS TRAJECTORY of profits. Have your people fax my people with a distribution proposal, I trust we will quickly negotiate the stock when this goes public, We'll schedule a research conference in the Caribbean tax shelter of your choosing ... 3 month's before the next Nobel Pageant.

When you sign for stock options, we will need a DNA sample, so signing in blood will cover all authentication bases in this everlasting contract.

Expect to hear from my man Faust no later than .....




.........................................


Kar Kulture



If GM had in production that electric car they bragged about IN THE 1980's,
I suggest that every American house hold would have one.
The THEN stated spec's implied that these 2 seater's could compete at city freeway speeds and still have a battery range of 70 to 100 miles, (your mileage may vary).

Retro fitting American house holds with a 480 volt three phase charging capability would be just one more win - win in rewiring American transportation marketing.

This is one product we may not care who ''steels'' the march on American corporations, AGAIN.

Why the mainland Chinese must copy the west in Kar Kulture and mimic our present energy dilemma seems as short sighted as dumping toxic wastes into one's local water shed. P''ing in one's own soup. The coal to electric conversion in Ohio is P''ing in Northeast lakes, so I am duly qualified as a hypocritical pundent.

More proof for the FATAL FLAW corollary that will 'sell' ""Intelligent Design"'(TM) no doubt.

Lot of 'fertilizer' run off into this potable aquifer ....

Better boil this before consuming .....





4too

 

[Jebus]

Y'know, sometimes I think mr. Hu has the hardest job in the world.

Image, for a second, you being the president of China.
There you are, at the head of a 1.3bln nation, trying to get everything to work smoothly. You've got a severely impoverished countryside, and some very rich coastal cities. The world calls you an asshole for letting such social unequality exist in your country.

'I can't really help that', you might think, 'it's not the poor getting poorer, it's only the rich getting richer. The gap in only growing in relative terms!'
But that won't get you out of trouble. 'But you've got billionaires!', people will shout. 'BILLIONAIRES!'

So how is that going to help him? There you have this huge, extremely diverse country that you're trying to get back on track. You could use the 'old' way - the communist way - the way that really was the best possible way for China as long as it lasted - the results are there. The problem is: if you go by that way, your gap will indeed be smaller - but people are going to be calling you an asshole because you're oppressing your people. Heh.

You could go the other way, though, and open the valves for the new world order. That's going to fuck you up too, though: there you have 800 million peasants who are usually poor as dirt, and most of which can barely even read. Who are they going to elect? It's frightening to even think of. So, most likely, the next elected president would be a president backed by the rich coastal cities - i.e. a liberal president. A president who would lower taxes, social security, and try all he might to make the economy grow...

But your peasants are going to be causing havoc then. China has a long and colourfull history of peasant revolts, and I personally shudder at the idea of 800 million peasants revolting... Because if China were to go completely liberal - the land capitalists are going to move in. Before you know it, you're going to have 800 million unemployed. Imagine that.

And then you have the weight of your history. 'High trees catch a lot of wind', they say - and by God, has the Chinese tree caught a lot of wind. It seems that troughout history, every country in the world has tried to fuck them over. Somewhere between the humiliation of the Opium wars, the time of the Chinese warlords and the further humiliation of the Japanese invasion, they decided the world could go fuck themselves and they closed up. The communist party - especially Mao - might've done some pretty fucked up stuff, but when China opened up again some fifty years later, you had a China the world had never seen before: a centralised, stable and, so help me God, efficient China.

So there you have this newborn China, still weak in the knees, wondering what'll happen: will the world finally respect it? No more humiliation?

But only moments after they truly open up, you have it already: hypocrite western leaders saying the Chinese should be more democratic, hypocrite western leaders blaming the Chinese for not abiding the rules of free trade (déja-vu), and hypocrite Japanese afraid of the diplomatic power a unified and centralised China has.

I wouldn't want to be mr. Hu. Not for all the money in the world.

 

[Roshambo]

Indeed, the US politicians are just waiting to write up a "CAFTA" to further sell out the US citizenry for a personal buck.

And to think China has it bad with a few rich people on the coast? The US votes them into office, except in cases where they have to buy it off. It is getting so bad, companies that give "contributions" to candidates also censor what their employees can or can't have on their vehicles, what presidential stickers they can or can't display on personal property in the parking lot, etc. Sometimes even to the point of putting on-the-job pressure to vote a certain way on something.

Indeed, China should strive to NOT become a capitalist elite oligarchy like the US.

 

[John Uskglass]

might've done some pretty fucked up stuff

He was worse then Hitler in a very, very, very real way. He killed more people during Peacetime then Hitler did during war, and Mao also had a thing for molesting children and was totally conscious of the fact that his ideology was periphery to his lust for control.

You could use the 'old' way - the communist way - the way that really was the best possible way for China as long as it lasted - the results are there.

You must not be serious. Must not.

Indeed, China should strive to NOT become a capitalist elite oligarchy like the US.

The only diffirence between The Manchu, the Maoists and the post-Xiaoping China is that in post-Xiaoping China talented people rise to the top. Mainland China has always and will for as long as anyone can see be ruled by a heiarchy.

-Higher levels of inequality than ever, while China enjoys its first billionaires and sends people to space.

I dare you to name one rise from preindustrial status to economic superpower status that did not involve an exacerbation of 'inequalities'?

Every Americans wants at least 3 cars.

But then global warmings is *their* fault because there're so many of them?

Tchyeah.

Global Warming = CARS. DEATH TO AMERICA FOR POISONING THE WORLD WITH SUVS.

China uses low grade coal far more then we do, and that shit is nasty. And there are hundreds of millions more people using it then Americans with SUVs. Frankly, China has an enviormental record on par with the city of Los Angeles in Bladerunner, even if they are going to start trying some fairly cool ecocities near Shanghai at Dongtan.

 

[welsh]

How many economic super powers are we talking about, John? Two, maybe three?

As I see it you have two basic systems- a system that creates high inequalities and one that promotes more social and economic equality.

If you compare the levels of inequality in the US today, you will find that they compare nicely with the US on the brink of the Great Depression.

Likewise, if you look at the lowest periods of social inequality in the US in the last century, it comes in the period from the 1950s into the 1970s, when the US became the industrial superpower that it eventually became.

It is dangerous to generalize on all Americans, Kharn. There are some SUV owners and a growing number of hybrid owners. Even the last election, the country was pretty split.

One of my Chinese students, the same one writing on Falun Gong, built his argument on the idea that the Chinese are just not as civilized as Westerners. His examples, Taiping Rebellion, Boxers, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution.

A bit too much national homogeneity in a population of billion plus leads to strange forms of 'group think'.

Is that a serious argument? I don't think so. I hope its equally hard to generalize on the CHinese, no matter how culturally homogeneous the population may be.

And while there is little doubt that more Chinese are better off than before, there's a lot of inequality and pretty fucked up shit happening.

And China, while you are celebrating your recent entry to space and planning your mission to the Moon... well, been there, done that. By the time you get to their, we'll probably have the Chinese restaurants ready.

General Tsao's Chicken?

 

[John Uskglass]

How many economic super powers are we talking about, John? Two, maybe three?

Every industrialized nation ever. I hate Socialism, but at the time it would seem logical that Capitalism was hurtful, as the early phases of Industrialization ALWAYS are.

As I see it you have two basic systems- a system that creates high inequalities and one that promotes more social and economic equality.

No, you have one that promotes growth and one that sacrifices growth for decedance. State Capitalism, frankly, has never proven to be more effectvie then a Free Market beyond the initial process of industrialization.

If you compare the levels of inequality in the US today, you will find that they compare nicely with the US on the brink of the Great Depression.

You DO realize that the cause of the Great Depression WAS TARIFFS, not SOCIAL INEQUALITIES.

A bit too much national homogeneity in a population of billion plus leads to strange forms of 'group think'.

National homogenetiy among *any* group of 1.2 billion people is a delusion.

Is that a serious argument? I don't think so. I hope its equally hard to generalize on the CHinese, no matter how culturally homogeneous the population may be.

NOT....HOMOGENOUS.

And while there is little doubt that more Chinese are better off than before, there's a lot of inequality and pretty fucked up shit happening.

Yes. Because an economy is growing. That is how economies grow.

 

[welsh]

I think your thesis suffers from oversimplification, and perhaps more basis in faith than fact.

It is simply not true that inequality is necessary for economic progress. Indeed, high levels of social inequality can easily undercut economic growth through political conflict.

Do you really want a system where in which there are many poor and few rich? Remember, as Barrington Moore teaches- no middle class, no democracy.

A vibrant middle class is usually an indicator of social equality but also stability in industrializing nations. In contrast where you have great inequalities, those at the top seek to insulate, seek protection from states through subsidies, and deny opportunities to other classes- a recipe that often leads to authoritarianism.

And while it may be that one find prosperity either through democracy or authoritarianism, how many authoritarian-prosperous countries have long-term stability? There is something to the thesis that democratization often leads through greater prosperity. How? Through the creation of social equality and redistribution.

 

[John Uskglass]

I think your thesis suffers from oversimplification, and perhaps more basis in faith than fact.

Yup, that's me. Still better then Socialist garbage.

It is simply not true that inequality is necessary for economic progress. Indeed, high levels of social inequality can easily undercut economic growth through political conflict.

That's the fault of the politics rather then the economics.

And are you going to argue that the current inequalitites are *worse* then China under *any previous government*?

Do you really want a system where in which there are many poor and few rich?

I'm no 19th Century rectionary. 'Course I don't.

Remember, as Barrington Moore teaches- no middle class, no democracy.

China is at this moment creating a massive middle class faster and in bigger numbers then any other country in the world, or maybe in the history of the world.

Yet still no Democracy.

A vibrant middle class is usually an indicator of social equality but also stability in industrializing nations.

So is hardship for the sub-Middle Class. There is a reason the nutritional intake for people in Western Europe went down consistently from 1400 to 1840.

In contrast where you have great inequalities, those at the top seek to insulate, seek protection from states through subsidies, and deny opportunities to other classes- a recipe that often leads to authoritarianism.

Or in this case stabalizes authoritarianism. However, a middle class is developing, and overall quality of life is going up.

how many authoritarian-prosperous countries have long-term stability?

Imperial Germany 1871 - 1918.

Through the creation of social equality and redistribution.

Those two have absolutley nothing to do with Democracy or Liberty, they are almost opposed to it.

And again, Imperial Germany did it.

 

[Jebus]

You could use the 'old' way - the communist way - the way that really was the best possible way for China as long as it lasted - the results are there.

You must not be serious. Must not.

Y'know, there is a theory that states that every government that a state has at any given time is usually the best type of government for that country at that time. This might sound a bit strange, but think of it: would the US have grown into such a big nation had it not had millions of immigrants because of its liberal policies? Would Germany have ever recovered from the 1918 bankrupcy and the crash of the 1930's if it weren't for Hitler?

And most importantly - do you think that China would've been able to climb up to the position they are in now without communism?

One of my Chinese students, the same one writing on Falun Gong, built his argument on the idea that the Chinese are just not as civilized as Westerners. His examples, Taiping Rebellion, Boxers, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution.

I hope you flunk him.

 

[pennyliu123]

Ok, to be frankly, I have not finished all your argument above yet, but I want to say something to you.

You all know that Rome can not be built in one night, so you should understand why there are still so many trouble in China, but, as some friend said, things are getting better. The money I've made in 5 years are the twice of my parents had done before they retired, the young ages have more opportunity to learn more about modern culture, and get to know which road China should taken, and after some years, these young men will take the place of Hu, and try to let China get on the right road as they imagined. The progress may be hard and long, but, you all, just wait and see, I'm sure it will happen.

I'm really surprised, why some of you think you know everything about China even more than Chinese do, I don't want to deny the problem of transparency in China, but we can also get imformation through internet, and more than that, we live in the country, we know what really happened in these years, but, how about you? Some, if not all, just have read some articles written by your reporters, or just stay in China for several days... I dare to say, I know sometimes I'm deceived by the Party or the government, but some of you don't know you are deceived or misled by your newspaper till now.

In the end, I'll repeat one opinion, progess need some time. Even now, China is behind of the west countries for many, many years, and China doesn't have the tradition of democracy even since the age of Kong zi and Lao zi. I do remember the fact that US government killed their people who demonstrated, invaded Vietnam, and have done many unfair things even AFTER it was regarded as a democracy. So, why some of you keep on with your criticizm on China problems, maybe there are more problems in your country should be resolved, if you really care.

My English is not good enough to express all my feeling and thought to you, but I love my country, I don't want to quarrel here, but I really don't want to see anybody criticize my country with an one-sided view---- China is getting better, please give it more time.

I hope you flunk him.

Thank you very much.

And, I really want Welsh to convey my words to your student, if all that he knows about his country is that Taiping rebelling thing, he doesn't have the qualification to talk about Chinese civilization, maybe you should give him a test on that topic.

The last word, China will not become anther Germany in 1930's, everyone in China will be totally sure about that.

 

[Jebus]

I always found it funny how people think they have grand ideas how the world should work. I mean, I read and love the Economist, for instance, but a lot fo the time they're just talking out of their ass and jumping to conclusions...

I mean, John, image yourself at the helm of China in 1945 or so. You have 60 years to bring the semi-retarted country that China was then to the level it is now.

You have 50 minutes, 500 words or less.