Frank
|
What, in your view, is the biggest misconception about China in the West?
The single biggest misconception is that you have a wicked government and a good people. The Chinese have had 3,000 years for the government and the people to shape each other. The institution in the West that most closely resembles the Chinese system is, in fact, the Sicilian mafia. You have a capo di tutti capi who prevents the other capi from killing each other. Because they’re natural anarchists, they don’t like any form of government. They’re loyal to their families. The emperor is nothing but a necessary evil. The idea of public trust and subsidiarity that’s fundamental to democracy is unknown to the Chinese.
So, all hope is not lost for the West when the Chinese ‘capo di tutti capi’ is educating his offspring in one of America’s Ivy League schools?
Well, the one thing that we’re much better at than the Chinese is innovation. As I mentioned, Huawei is very much dependent on Western employees for innovation. I’m not saying the Chinese can’t innovate. During the Tang dynasty (618 to 906 A.D.), which is considered a golden age of Chinese arts and culture, the Chinese invented the clock, the compass, gunpowder, printing and, virtually, all of the elements of the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. However, the Chinese form of meritocracy, which is based on standardized exams, is the second-best way of running that meritocracy. Albert Einstein, who sat in the Swiss patent office because he couldn’t get a university job …
… and then invented the theory of relativity at his private home …
Right. This is unimaginable in China. If you ask the Chinese what worries them the most, many will say, “How come we have no Nobel prizes?” Eight Chinese have won the Nobel prize in sciences, but they are all Chinese who lived in America.
https://asiatimes.com/2019/10/you-can-never-be-chinas-friend-spengler/
|