Ten Commandments of China Watching

Back in the late 1970s I met Laszlo LaDany in Hong Kong a few times, a Hungarian Jesuit and acknowledged the foremost China watcher.  For those studying China, you cannot do better than Jonathan Spence, for anything he has written, plus two books by LaDany.

The Communist Party of China and Marxism 1912-85: A Self Portrait




The Law and Legality in China: the testament of a China-watcher


Careful to get these in US$ prices, since used copies often carry Hong Kong $ price tags in the hundreds.  Here are Ladany's ten commandments for China Watching, from one of his books:

Number seven is particularly good.  In our society, the powers that be advance their agenda with campaigns:  War on Poverty!  War on Drugs! No Child Left Behind!  The game is to foment a crisis, fashion a solution (which is actually just more of what they wanted anyway) and cram it down our throats.  The Patriotic Act was sitting around the Clinton Administration for years, but Clinton did not have the chutzpah to push it.  Come 9-11, it was dusted off by Bush.

But the reverse is true, too.  Embrace and extend...  As more state legalize marijuana, the bad guys among the powers that be will accept it and embrace it and extend it.  The communist party in China accepted the natural entrepreneurial tendencies in the Chinese to liberate their country, and now free trade is most expanded under Chinese Communism. Talk about paradox.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post