Monday, October 15, 2007

Changing the rules before China rules

I like my own type of study on nationalism. Ask people to rate different countries out of 10. How much they like them. That simple.
France? 7/10, they say. Romania? 4/10. Germany? 8/10. Ivory Coast? 3/10.
What about China? What do you give it?

At APEC, some legitimately expressed their dislike of George Bush, which I happen to share. But where was the protest against leaders other than Bush who have committed far more heinous crimes? And where was the pressure on countries like China to change the conditions for its own citizens? I welcome Beijing to balance the power of Washington, but ultimately, I'd prefer to live under the autocratical rule of the USA than China.
Issues under which world governments are likely to unite in order to pressure China.
Environmentalism, Equality, Human rights, Corruption and Governance, Good Institutions, Safe Products.
The stress should be to change, but slowly...we cannot force these things on China overnight, and the prosperity of the whole world is dependent on the prosperity and stability of China.

In the mean-time, is there really a decline, a decadence in our own societies which threaten their ongoing viability? We're so dependent on our cheap imports from China! Where will the next great factories be? And it seems to me that 1860-1939 was where such a great flurry of important scientific, philosophical and economic work was done, and more is being outsourced offshore all the time. Obviously since then, we've also had the computer and Internet revolutions, but standards seem to have dropped according to longitudinal studies, with the exception of amongst skilled migrants.

1 comment:

Eastcoastdweller said...

Right now, looking at the missiles pointed at Taiwan, the destruction of Tibetan culture, the role of China in supporting evil regimes from North Korea to Myanmar to Sudan, its export of cheap, poisoned junk and of course its lousy, totalitarian government, I'd give the place a zero.