| | | IMHO, the contest before us is whether democracy in an increasingly ideologically polarized country in the era of fake news can compete against rule by elites as in China. Most Chinese don't have much if any say in their politics, and certainly not for the top leaders who set policy.
Democracy had a great run in the USA when the voters paid attention. Times are changing. I look at my parents generation, the kids of the Depression, and they devoted their lives to pulling themselves up, largely through education and then hard work. They were civic minded too. But they also lived through an era of the USA and middle class doing progressively better. They were better off than their parents, and expected their kids to be better off than they were.
The country that really is at the cross roads is actually China. They have finally arrived in most aspects but one: Respect. Trump bitches about our trade imbalance, of which China is problem #1, yet its interesting to note that currently China is burning through about that same monthly rate of foreign reserves to attempt to combat currency outflow from China. Why the outflow? Chinese with means still worry about China, and still find places like the USA attractive.
So the problem before the leaders of China is really whether they can make China as desirable a place to invest and live as the USA. Its a much different problem than the technology and manufacturing problems they have tackled and succeeded at. But Trump is handing them part of the solution in having the USA retreat from the world stage and leaving a vacuum for China to step into. The question is whether China can fill the vacuum gracefully, which would bring them untold long term benefits. TWT what happens. |
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