CHINESE WAY OF LIFE

JEFF J. BROWN—It’s easy to see that being a Chinese citizen is a much bigger daily responsibility and the expectations of the many over the wants of the individual are so much greater than in Western civilization. Euranglolanders often feel superior over Chinese families, when they see young children here being loud, boisterous and spoiled rotten. They are for a few years. It’s the one time in their lives when they get to enjoy some of that Solo Man Me, Myself and I, because by the time they get first grade in school, China’s civilizational hierarchy starts to kick in.

JEFF J. BROWN—Of course, over five millennia of civilizational history, China has had its fair share of megalomaniacs, psychopaths, corrupted and incompetents in positions of power, both government and military. But, as the Qunshu Zhiyao instructs, the ideals of good governance and peacekeeping are all about social harmony, economic prosperity and avoiding war at all cost, so politicians and leaders of this stripe are the outliers, not the mainstream, as is the case in Eurangloland.

F W ENGDAHL—The Baoshang Bank to all appearances looked healthy. Its last financial report issued in 2017 showed a profit of $600 million for 2016, assets of near $90 billion and bad loans of less than 2%. The insolvency shock has created a growing risk crisis in China’s interbank lending markets not unlike the early stages of America’s 2007 sub-prime mortgage interbank crisis. It has forced the PBOC, the national bank, to inject billions of yuan, so far $125 billion equivalent, and to issue a guarantee of all bank deposits to contain fears of a larger systemic banking crisis. Indications are the crisis is far from over.

RAMIN MAZAHERI—Let’s not forget that the CR’s open emphasis on the rural over the urban (revolutionary in itself, and unappreciated by the USSR) was also ordered by any conception of democracy: While China was 56% urban in 2015 it was only 20% urban as late as 1980. The USSR’s emphasis on the primacy of a vanguard party over a People’s democratic dictatorship certainly did not keep socialism flag’s flying after 1991.It is no exaggeration to say that the CR brought the Industrial Revolution to rural China – it was truly that important.