China has unveiled the team that will handle yet another critical phase of China modernization. There is no doubt that the leaders are aware they have a stability problem to face, the the Communist Party believes this is the team to handle it.
China has gone its own way the last 100 years (ok, 5000 years, plus) and the results have been remarkable. There are a couple of books you can read for background on this, Lazslo LaDany wrote only two books, but since they relate to Chinese law and the Communist party, they are good background. Spence has written a dozen of books on China, each and every one valuable.
My mind runs to these books as I look at the line up, and see two things I wish I did not...
1. The top two guys are lawyers (or at least that is now on their resumes). Lawyers should never be allowed in the executive branch, as Immanual Kant cautioned. Look what it has done to USA.
2. Almost all of the soldiers are now wearing ribbons. It's a symbol of decadence and decline in a military, and ought to be frowned upon. I recall being in Chinese airports and train stations in the 1970s when every soldier dressed alike (heck, everyone dressed alike.) Occasionally there would be someone in a uniform that got very special treatment. Everyone (except me) knew who was who.
It seems to me it is being allowed for purposes of having Chinese generals look like western generals. China today likely has the best military it had since the Tang Dynasty. So it's too early to begin looking like generals who lose.
USA needs competition from China so people like me can compete. If China just replaces USA, then what is the point?
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
China has gone its own way the last 100 years (ok, 5000 years, plus) and the results have been remarkable. There are a couple of books you can read for background on this, Lazslo LaDany wrote only two books, but since they relate to Chinese law and the Communist party, they are good background. Spence has written a dozen of books on China, each and every one valuable.
My mind runs to these books as I look at the line up, and see two things I wish I did not...
1. The top two guys are lawyers (or at least that is now on their resumes). Lawyers should never be allowed in the executive branch, as Immanual Kant cautioned. Look what it has done to USA.
2. Almost all of the soldiers are now wearing ribbons. It's a symbol of decadence and decline in a military, and ought to be frowned upon. I recall being in Chinese airports and train stations in the 1970s when every soldier dressed alike (heck, everyone dressed alike.) Occasionally there would be someone in a uniform that got very special treatment. Everyone (except me) knew who was who.
It seems to me it is being allowed for purposes of having Chinese generals look like western generals. China today likely has the best military it had since the Tang Dynasty. So it's too early to begin looking like generals who lose.
USA needs competition from China so people like me can compete. If China just replaces USA, then what is the point?
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
2 comments:
Perhaps a little off-topic but I'm curious if you have read the popular book '100 years' by George Friedman and your take on it. I finished it the other day. It is a sort geopolitical analysis about who will become the mightiest nations, particularly in relation to China versus the US, which I think is a pessimistic way of seeing things. He seems to be a strong believer in a Pax Americana and he lays out a lot of arguments for it. But I don't think China would necessarily agree.
I studied mandarin and then got a scholarship to study in China for one year. I have read quite a lot of Chinese history but I still have very little knowledge or sense of how things will develop even ten years from now, let alone one hundred years.
I haven't read it an probably will never get around to a book that makes a "imperial america/ American Exceptionalism" zero sum game argument. Life's too short! Better to read more Jonathan Spence.
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