Come on folks, chill out.
No matter how misguided Worswick's comments may or may not be, they were hardly racist. I'm not defending him out of the goodness of my heart, I only want to be able to continue making fun of the French <VBG>.
But I do want to offer an alternate scenario to his dark portrayal of the decay and ruin of China because it's in their character. Bah! I say. The real issue is the betrayal of the people by their leadership, a historical lesson that has been repeated time and again since the birth of empires. The enemy is not the Army, dispossessed youth, or some nebulous Asian value system. Puuulllllease! The issue is that virulent pinko communism that has destroyed the growth prospects of a whole swath of the not-so-free world in the post-WWII regime.
Here, I find hope. The Chinese leadership, as embodied by Zhu, has found religion. They actually get it. They're deregulating, selling-off assets, laying off workers, and promoting home ownership. This is communism? Maybe in name only. Marx is turning over in his grave. Good.
Also forgotten in this lame epistemological debate is some realities from the world of international finance. The most important being that CURRENCIES, AT THE END OF THE DAY, ARE CENTRALLY PLANNED. That's right, and only China has managed to keep her peg to the dollar while all her neighbors race to the bottom. Hogwash about "courage" aside, the reality is that nobody gains from unstable currencies and China knows it. They will do everything in their power to keep the yuan pegged. Bear in mind that China is the only responsible player in the region in this currency crisis. Might this portend of a brighter future to come?
Finally, chew on a little math. At $5/hr, working 40hrs a week for 50 weeks, that's $10,000 a year. Multiply that by about 800 million working age adults, and you get a GNP around the size of the U.S. When will a Chinese worker make $5/hr? Not soon, that's for sure. But this does give you an indication of the infinite potential possible. The open question is when leadership will rise to fill that potential. |
