He means the Chinese weren't, and aren't, living in the Stone Age, otherwise known as the Neolithic. They were reading, writing, living in cities, wearing fine garments woven out of silk, had orchestral music, astronomy, medicine, architecture, mathematics etc. etc. while your ancestors (and mine) were wearing fur skins and painting themselves blue. Excellent philosophers, too.
Western science is still learning about acupuncture, herbal medicine, and so forth, but you don't see big, fat Chinese people keeling over from strokes and heart attacks at the age of 50.
Yes, there are a lot of peasants in China, but they've got everything we have - literacy, schools, hospitals, universities, electricity, roads, bridges, dams, factories, you name it, they've got it. Rocket science, satellites. Loral used to launch on Long March rockets, remember?
Part of their being behind on the latest technology is due to an embargo, remember? So it's not like they are stupid or uncivilized, it's their government, which they can't do much about. |
