RODERIC DAY—Though it came as a shock to Western audiences, who understand China to be a tyrannical state-capitalist authoritarian regime, observers in the imperial periphery have always seen things rather differently. As far back as 2004, Fidel Castro argued that “China has objectively become the most promising hope and the best example for all Third World countries,” and in August 2014, he reaffirmed this sanguine outlook: “Xi Jinping is one of the strongest and most capable revolutionary leaders I have met in my life.”
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WEI LING CHUA—It took China 15 years of negotiation with the US before the US allowed China to enter the WTO in 2000. During that time, the West was happy to transfer polluted and labor-intensive industries to China: they were happy to allow China to set up factories to assemble iPhones for Apple. Why not? Apple pays the price of a cappuccino to the Chinese factories for each iPhone assembled while selling the iPhones back to Chinese consumers and the rest of the world for hundreds of dollars per unit of iPhone.
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RON UNZ—The social importance of competitive examinations was enormous, playing the same role in determining membership in the ruling elite that the aristocratic bloodlines of Europe’s nobility did until modern times, and this system embedded itself just as deeply in the popular culture. The great noble houses of France or Germany might trace their lineages back to ancestors elevated under Charlemagne or Barbarossa, with their heirs afterward rising and falling in standing and estates, while in China the proud family traditions would boast generations of top-scoring test-takers, along with the important government positions that they had received as a result.
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HOSTED BY BRIAN BERLETIC. Historian and podcaster Carl Zha and international relations and security expert Mark Sleboda join the New Atlas again, this time to talk about Russian-Chinese history and whether or not there is any historical basis for the West’s current desire to see a new “Sino-Soviet” split.
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PETER MAN—I am from Hong Kong and have become a Canadian like Sana. I worked in the mainstream media in the early days of my career and actually built a national Chinese-language television station in Canada. That was a long time ago. When Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997, I returned to my hometown to watch that historical event. I ended up getting a job in China and lived there for almost two decades. I have witnessed China’s rise and I can share one of my experiences in a few words. I was utterly shocked by the complete disregard for factual reporting of China by Western journalists.
