G'day all again, hi Ron, you have raised many interesting points about which I have occasionally pondered [not that I ve too many brain cells left to think about this sort of things :).]
Regarding India, I think contemporary history has suggested that the US has not been able to gain a whole lot in spite of her efforts. Face it, the late PM Indira Gandhi really played the US like a fiddle. While it is my personal belief that Indians are smart cookies, they are still very fragmented and I wonder how the western governments react to their rallying cry around nationalism, in the guise of Hinduism, and vice versa. Mind you, the only major religious group who doesn't possess the bomb is those buddhists [sorry to be tongue in cheek, but somehow I always wanted to say it :)!]
Regardless, I do think India is a raising economic power. An interesting question [or even comparison] though is who has a faster rising middle class [China vs India,] why and why not.
While I ve no answer - sometimes I don't even ask the right questions :) - I think the Beijing-Taiwanes relationship goes beyond pragmatic understanding. It is one of those "losing face" ego trip thingies. Face it, the original CCP and KMT leadership and rank n file are 90% 6 feet under, so I doubt it is any genuine animosity. I do think the Taiwanese is more progressive, simply b/c of its size [or the lack thereof] and its contact with the West being longer. OTOH, the Chinese has a gap to fill. Let me explain, it is my beliefs that the Cultural Revolution has essentially taken out a whole generation. Just think, the West has seen tremendous gain in the Boomer generation. The very same time these boomers were forming their life long skills, the Chinese counterparts were ploting to do others in so they could survive. Paranoia can be tough habit to break <sigh>! So, instead of Mao's contention, when he alleged said that 3 generations would be sacrificed in order to modernize China, 4 generations got scr*wed. Of course, this is only my theory. Still, it is hard to draw any moralistic conclusion. To say the least, feeding 1.2B people is no small task. So, one has to debate between quality and quantity.
best, Bosco |
