CYNTHIA CHUNG AND MATT EHRET OF RISING TIDE FOUNDATION DISCUSS WITH JEFF J. BROWN HIS BOOK, “BIG RED BOOK ON CHINA”: PART 1 OF 2.

Good for Brown, he saw the light but like many Americans he thinks that his country is part of the West as he constantly keeps repeating. The Anglo/American world is not that of the continent of Europe. In fact, the Russians have more in common with Western Europeans than with Americans. It is obvious that he observes through American eyes, which is extremely restrictive because it is from a tunnel vision culture, what could be called an extremely provincial one. Colored by that threshold he is sensitive to the enormous technical explosion of China, but he remains hobbled by admiration of size and material reality, without seeing that despite the chrome and glitter the Chinese people are still part of their long and ancient history which has imbued the Chinese persona with cooperation and consideration for their fellow humans, with an extremely refined sense of respect for their elders and a deep intuition, entirely unknown to the eager and always ready US citizen. One might also say that the American abroad floats on the surface of visited societies and is never able to penetrate or be acceptable by indigenous people. It is okay, her/his enthusiasm and faith in the future are truly infectious and seductive, but they have a Sturm und Drang charm, untrammeled by ancestral devotion and polite restrictions on invading other people’s sensitivites.