Stitch: Very kind of you.
One discomforting thought compels me to make a few unsolicited remarks now and then. It is that even those who are aware of events in the Far East are too often unfamiliar with the nature of those events. Our media would neeed only make a token effort to move the public into disfavor on issues where China is concerned.
MACHIAVELLIAN
At times I feel a great segment of our societies here in the West only disguise the truth when they protest ruthless resolution. The truth probably rests closer to a distaste for discipline.
How easily we complicate fundamental principles. Poor leadership, I suppose. A nod to the East for the seemingly uncomplicated way they choose (and it is a choice) to view their problems. Something not to be expected in a nation of so many factional interests, such as ours.
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It's no longer a question of what the leaders want. If the leaders don't bring progress and prosperity to replace backwardness and poverty, there will be a revolution in China, a real one in which armies will change sides and will shoot ministers. That's part of Chinese tradition.
The people now know that it is the system that is at fault. They see the Taiwanese. Look at them bringing all their gifts to relatives. They look at Hong Kong. If people in Singapore can make it and people in China can not, then it has to be the stupidity of the Soviet system that Mao adopted. Then let's get rid of it.
-- Lee Kuan Yew (as presented by Jim Rohwer in his ASIA RISING)
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CHINA POLICY
U.S. policy, where China is concerned, has been for the most part commendable. Yet, more so from a strategic perspective than a tactical one. Their are instances when I have felt that U.S. policy was moving in too far from the "periphery."
The best we in the industrialised West can do is to ensure economic and political security in the region. Just another aspect, however, where some entities both private and public appear to feel their bottom lines transcend what are sovereign interests.
Additionally, among my best wishes for China and East Asia there lies one concern that goes to the very heart of China's personality. The products of the Cultural Revolution, who are now middle-aged, have been to the depths of human existence and returned, many of them, to be educated in some of the finest universities in the world. They are, for the most part, fiercely patriotic and will be China's leaders in the opening decades of the 21st century.
Extremist notions have spawned from such circumstances in the past.
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