Here is the link to an interesting trip journal by a Canadian recently traveling to China. Many good points and food for thoughts. Political – sure, but in a raw, intelligent, sincere, and honest way. I hope you enjoy!
Hidden Harmonies China Blog
As China Re-Awakens, Finding New Harmonies in a Brave New World...
Ray says
Thanks for sharing. I want to add that China annual steel production has actually reached 800 million tons not 600 million!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_steel_production
As to Chinese being racist against dark skinned people, I simply want to say that some have a genuine fear. I know a lady business owner friend who would not let in a would be ethnic Indian customer because at that time she was all alone in a weekend. There’s no excuse for discrimination but that’s pretty much as bad as racism would get. No Chinese skin heads or KKK would ever take root, maybe against other Chinese groups. As have taken place in HK and Taiwan.
Well, China’s primary energy reserve happens to be coal. China’s industrialization simply couldn’t happened over the last 50 years without that. It is unfortunate that pollution is bad but it is actually getting better, not worse. To rely on imported oil or gas simply would put China in an untenable position strategic wise. To make matter worse, China has over 150 cities with over 1 million people. Life expectancy in Beijing and Shanghai is actually higher than New York and LA. Food for thought? Green energy is still more expensive.
Also, it seems that Mao and CPC’s leadership is right in experimenting with cultural revolution as they feel that Chinese culture need a revolution. They feel that the education in school doesn’t provide the proper culture to people. It is interesting to note that the author experience excellent hospitality from Chinese staff in an American hotel. Well, it is obvious that courtesy can be trained and ingrained so every body seems to be nice to each other. However, in my view what really matters is what people actually think and believe behind closed door. Many Chinese and Indian are simply more at a “natural stage”, they don’t pretend to be someone they are not. It is a pity that even civil servants have bad attitude and obviously much more training is needed. Traffic rule enforcement is also “pretty loose” in China.
All in all, I would say it is a very fair assessment of China. The conversation between Liang Wu Di and Bodhidharma are actually recorded by Chinese historian. So much so that there is a Chinese saying “To save a life has more merit that building a 9 storied pagoda”.
“Any concerns with the environment, legality, morality, ethics, worker safety, is of no consequence, if you can get away with it. If it were not for the Government, they would get away with murder. Deng Xiaoping has unleashed a monster.”
Isn’t this the same conclusion of Melektous when he visited China and feel that if not for the CPC, China would be a much worse place.
I just want to add that from my own observation the reason the CPC is so “successful” is because it follows the old teaching in China. To say that it is communist, socialist or capitalistic is simply too shallow. The CPC actually run China using elements of Confucianism, Legalism, Daoism, Buddhism and Mozism. For any person to remotely understand China, one simply must read them.
The following is a recent speech by Jack Ma titled “When East Meets West”. Unfortunately, only Chinese version available now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paMiYHWnEvE
Tseng Kin-Wah says
Surprised the author does not mention the “Common” written characters which any Chinese (irrespective of province) understands. That’s how they communicate even if not conversing through Putonghua.
N.M.Cheung says
Interesting article. I just want to make a few points.
1. I did ride the subway in Beijing and Shanghai, and a few times young students did offer their seat to me which I politely declined and thank them. I think younger generation is changing in this respect.
2. China do need to build more transmission lines and energy storages. I read quite a few of the wind turbines and solar arrays are idle because insufficient transmission lines.
3. Recently Central government has ordered stoppage of more than 1,000 coal fired power projects and I expect more will be done in this regard.
4. High speed rail is changing the dynamic of the country, binding the nation into really a unified single entity not just for tourism or time saving, but singleness of purpose and understanding.
5. Giving Trump administration recent comments by Tillerson and Spicer. If U.S. try to blockade South China Sea islands, war may be in the horizon. So those who think U.S. will disengage from world may have another thing coming. Trump may want to have a second chance to grab Iraqi oil also.