Unfortunately, as Adam Smith long ago observed, we tend to admire the wealthy (without any reflection on whether the wealth was inherited or ill-gotten). And so many people in the Global South look up to the West.
Perhaps our attitudes will change one day when China’s nominal per capita GDP exceeds the US per capita GDP. But for that to happen, China must let its currency appreciate gradually so that the nominal GDP is more aligned with PPP. This in turn requires China to stop accumulating US dollars in its official foreign reserves and state owned banks.
One day when the US defaults on its public debt, there will be a global shock, and suddenly people will realise the emperor has no clothes!
Will the citizens of North America then be like those of East Germany, being told constant lies about China by their media and state officials while a minority find ways to access independent media from outside? Will the US and Canadian governments ban Chinese media, and label those who visit China as Xi-puppets?
China is working hard to stop this possibility, with its new openness to Western tourists and even the ability to pay on the Beijing subway using Mastercard and Visa. China can become the vision of the future that the US was to many in the 1950s, and the US is so dependent upon its goods that a North American "Oceania" is not attainable. Especially when opposed by a combined Eurasia, Eastasia and the Disputed territories. Then NA will become like the United Kingdom, a slowly decaying entity that used to be the centre of the world.
From a Chinese professor friend: "I can not stand my former classmates who are English professors in Chinese universities. For that matter, most college educated Chinese men are like that as well. They are all admirers of 'western accomplishments'.
I had a female visiting professor who was teaching English in China. She attended the same university I did. While she trashed African Americans, she admired everything white in America. Finally I could not stand it any more, and I had to tell her to stop talking like that, and I consider it an insult to me if I did not shut her up directly. In the end, she left, and went to another college for her study.
After forty years of brainwashing by the current Chinese ideology, China is no longer the country with solidarity to the poor people, colored people and oppressed people in the world. Chinese elite today are like the upstarts everywhere, looking down upon working class, colored people and oppressed people.
China needs another Cultural Revolution to wipe these scum from Chinese society".
Wasn't Xi Jinping chosen to be somewhat of a Cultural Revolution to take the Party-state back to its roots and away from liberalism and corruption? It is depressing how many Chinese academics trot out liberal ideology (and not just ABCs and CBCs), but hopefully there are some old-style believers in the Party-state.
Unfortunately, as Adam Smith long ago observed, we tend to admire the wealthy (without any reflection on whether the wealth was inherited or ill-gotten). And so many people in the Global South look up to the West.
Perhaps our attitudes will change one day when China’s nominal per capita GDP exceeds the US per capita GDP. But for that to happen, China must let its currency appreciate gradually so that the nominal GDP is more aligned with PPP. This in turn requires China to stop accumulating US dollars in its official foreign reserves and state owned banks.
One day when the US defaults on its public debt, there will be a global shock, and suddenly people will realise the emperor has no clothes!
Will the citizens of North America then be like those of East Germany, being told constant lies about China by their media and state officials while a minority find ways to access independent media from outside? Will the US and Canadian governments ban Chinese media, and label those who visit China as Xi-puppets?
China is working hard to stop this possibility, with its new openness to Western tourists and even the ability to pay on the Beijing subway using Mastercard and Visa. China can become the vision of the future that the US was to many in the 1950s, and the US is so dependent upon its goods that a North American "Oceania" is not attainable. Especially when opposed by a combined Eurasia, Eastasia and the Disputed territories. Then NA will become like the United Kingdom, a slowly decaying entity that used to be the centre of the world.
From a Chinese professor friend: "I can not stand my former classmates who are English professors in Chinese universities. For that matter, most college educated Chinese men are like that as well. They are all admirers of 'western accomplishments'.
I had a female visiting professor who was teaching English in China. She attended the same university I did. While she trashed African Americans, she admired everything white in America. Finally I could not stand it any more, and I had to tell her to stop talking like that, and I consider it an insult to me if I did not shut her up directly. In the end, she left, and went to another college for her study.
After forty years of brainwashing by the current Chinese ideology, China is no longer the country with solidarity to the poor people, colored people and oppressed people in the world. Chinese elite today are like the upstarts everywhere, looking down upon working class, colored people and oppressed people.
China needs another Cultural Revolution to wipe these scum from Chinese society".
Wasn't Xi Jinping chosen to be somewhat of a Cultural Revolution to take the Party-state back to its roots and away from liberalism and corruption? It is depressing how many Chinese academics trot out liberal ideology (and not just ABCs and CBCs), but hopefully there are some old-style believers in the Party-state.
fascinating.. thanks for stating all this..
Thanks for setting the record straight, Roger.