Re: [Marxism] Exaggerating Chinese economic power

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The Washington Post author makes many good points in this piece.

No one should ever exaggerate anything ever, ever, ever. Everyone
should always be perfectly and completely objective about every
single thing at every single moment. No one must ever stretch or
over-emphasize a single point. Ruthless objectivity is the only
stance which can possibly be permissible under any circumstances.

Of course just as exaggerating China's strengths can cause one
heartburn, similarly, under-estimating China's numerous strengths,
above all its massive population, long historical traditions of
hard-work and resourcefulness. And let's not forget other gains
since winning its independence from Western domination with the
triumph of the Chinese Revolution on October 1, 1949. These, too, 
ought not to be under-estimated or sneered at, either. 

China has harnessed its many resources, and has taken the gamble
of allowing market forces to play a central role in building up
its development. This has been very, very successful, and thus
evokes fear and paranoia among some in the United States whose
hostility toward the "Yellow peril" couldn't be more palpable.

That's not what this thoughtful commentator from the Washington
post is doing. He clearly does have a good grasp of the reality
of China after so many years of living there.

But the flip-side of his point should also be kept in mind as 
the relentless drumbeat of hostility toward China, sneering at
its many problems, and ignoring its many gains, should also be
avoided if we're to have a balanced and objective look at the
world's largest society, with one of its oldest cultures.

China today stands on the better side of most international 
disputes, generally stays out of meddling in the affairs of
the states with which it does business, and that helps us to
understand why ordinary Chinese people have responded with
rather more optimism to their society's efforts to rebuild
after the Chengu earthquake not long ago, as a recent essay
in the New York Times pointed out so well. What a difference
between that and here in the United States where the outcome
of Hurricane Katrina has been a mixture of privatization and
the continuing dispersal of the local - largely Black - 
population. It's only thanks to people like Naomi Klein and
activist groups in New Orleans like the Reconstruction Party
and voices like those of Cynthia McKinney that the terrible
consequences of what Klein calls the Shock Doctrine are now
being more broadly studied and understood.

Fidel Castro, one of the most experienced leaders on earth,
understands what the China-dismissers don't, and his country
has had excellent relations with the People's Republic of 
China for many years. Some of his reflections on China, and
above all contextualizing China in the modern world, would 
provide a helpful antidote to the constand dismissals of
China which continue to be so widespread in Disneylandia:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/fc-china.html 

Cuba, of course, has its own problems, of which something less
than 100% can be attributed to Washington's blockade of the
island. Yet that very blockade, from which China has stopped
suffering for three decades now, has been the principal and
most powerful obstacle to Cuba's ability to resolve the many
problems from which. In the face of Washington's relentless
hostility, Cubans have proven quite resourceful at meeting
their many challenges. That's why, when the Soviet Union
collapsed, the Cubans simply adapted by reconfiguring their
system to deal with the new realities, as it had also done
in the sixties, which being wrenched out of its historical
connections with the United States, the Cubans then also
had to reconfigure their arrangements.

There are no simple, universally-applicable solutions to
the problems of the modern world. That's what should today
be kept in mind. A better world is possible, and to build
one it would really be helpful to be able to objectively
look at the experiences of others, and not sneer at them.

One major advantage which China has over the United States
is that it isn't trying to overthrow governments and then
to try to occupy and subdue countries thousands of miles 
from its shores. This is a point which has eluded the 
dominant presidential candidates this year. China has its
problems, but this, fortunately, isn't one of them.


Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, Califonia
where smog has been significantly reduced in the past twenty
years. Perhaps the high price of gasoline will finally take
more of us Angelinos out of our automobiles. Alas, those who
have forced us to continue to rely on the antiquated private
property system of individual automobile ownership as the
main form of public transportation, continue to hold sway in
this City of the Angels. Perhaps a movement toward building
a real system of mass transportation will evolve as the cost
of getting around continues to lower the standards of living
for most people who have to travel to their places of work.


------------------------------------------------------------------
Economy Helps Make Chinese the Leaders in Optimism, Survey Finds
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
New York Times
July 23, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/world/asia/23pew.html

WASHINGTON â Buoyed by years of extraordinary growth and the promise of the
Olympic Games, the Chinese people hold strikingly positive views of their
national economy and the direction their country is heading, ranking first
in both measures among 24 countries recently surveyed, the Pew Research
Center said Tuesday.

FULL:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism/2008-July/032149.html
========================================================================================
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/25/AR2008072502255_2.html
A Long Wait at the Gate to Greatness

By John Pomfret
Sunday, July 27, 2008; B01
----------------------------------------------------------------------
And yet we seem to revel in overestimating China. One recent evening, 
I was at a party where a senior aide to a Democratic senator was 
discussing the business deal earlier this year in which a Chinese 
state-owned investment company had bought a big chunk of the 
Blackstone Group, a U.S. investment firm. The Chinese company has 
lost more than $1 billion, but the aide wouldn't believe that it was 
just a bum investment. "It's got to be part of a broader plan," she
insisted. "It's China."

I tried to convince her otherwise. I don't think I succeeded.







































=========================================
     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un ParaÃso bajo el bloqueo"
=========================================

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu