[Peace-discuss] China is near

[E.Wayne Johnson]

I saw that guy on cctv here a day or 2 ago being questioned about his book's sensational title suggesting something of the sort of global tyranny that gives Hillary and her ilk goosebumps just imagining it.

He admitted the bait-and-switch character of the title was geared toward  generating sales but claimed that "ruling the world" has a softer meaning in American English since actually Ruling the World escapes all who desire it, (even the Oligarchs of the USA?).

My comment is that China is like every "overnight success".  It takes years to become an overnight success, and it's still in log phase.   It aint yet 1955 in China relative to the rise and decline s-curve of the USA.  And hey, the US made a lot of tech advances after 1955 even though it passed another inflection point in many ways about that time.

But anyone can be a China expert.  I still think Bill Holm is way out front,
and that Portuguese guy who travelled with Mateo Ricci had a lot of astute observations that are still quite valid.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: C. G. Estabrook 
  To: Peace-discuss 
  Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2011 4:38 PM
  Subject: [Peace-discuss] China is near


  Sinomania
  Perry Anderson
  LRB 32:2 · 28 January 2010

  "...In the 19th century, Europe looked to America as the future, if one still quite some way off. In the 21st century, the West looks towards China in something of the same way. So far, certainly, no Tocqueville of the East has appeared. Is what he once achieved repeatable? There is plenty of time yet. But it is unlikely that Democracy in America will find its successor, wherever else it might, in any Modernity in China."

  http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n02/perry-anderson/sinomania

  ...Ostensibly this London Review of Books essay is simply an assessment of a few books, including When China Rules the World, one of the most talked-about 2009 publications on the PRC. It is also, though, a thoughtful reflection on long-term trends in Western thinking about China, highlighting the swings between and occasional combining of "Sinophobia" and "Sinomania" (a term Anderson uses where some others might use Sinophilia). Particularly astute is the claim that When China Rules the World, despite its seemingly Sinophobic title, has many passages that veer toward Sinomania. The same mix of concern about and amazement at the country's rapid rise can be seen in other recent writings on the PRC, including Niall Ferguson's late 2010 Wall Street Journal op-ed "In China's Orbit" and is likely to continue to influence publications in the months to come...

  http://www.thechinabeat.org/?p=3026





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