 Share
|
« Previous Fallows | Next Fallows » |
Email
Print
|
Festival of updates #2: China business!
By
Recently I mentioned an enjoyable discussion session at the Motley Fool, which is available in this podcast. Today there was a followup analysis here,
at the Fool's site. The low-road reason I mention it is that it's very complimentary about my assessment of life and business in
China. But there's a high-road reason too, which involves an aspect of making sense of China
that, IMHO, needs to be stressed again and again, even if you've
already stressed it a lot -- as I certainly have.
This aspect, which indeed can never be stressed strongly enough, concerns the chaos, diversity, internal contradiction, unknowability, and general "many different countries and cultures coexisting under one name" nature of today's China. It's harder to keep track of such a confusing reality than it would be to say, "We must be afraid of China" or "The Chinese want XXXX" or "With its new power, China will do YYYY." But it is certainly more interesting and stimulating to embrace all this contradictory reality than to stick to a monolithic view of one big, "rising," potentially menacing power. It is also much truer to life. In any case, I am glad to see the Motley Fool analyst underscoring this point. And I think the author of this item, Sean Sun, has added a very interesting born-in-China perspective. As he says:
This aspect, which indeed can never be stressed strongly enough, concerns the chaos, diversity, internal contradiction, unknowability, and general "many different countries and cultures coexisting under one name" nature of today's China. It's harder to keep track of such a confusing reality than it would be to say, "We must be afraid of China" or "The Chinese want XXXX" or "With its new power, China will do YYYY." But it is certainly more interesting and stimulating to embrace all this contradictory reality than to stick to a monolithic view of one big, "rising," potentially menacing power. It is also much truer to life. In any case, I am glad to see the Motley Fool analyst underscoring this point. And I think the author of this item, Sean Sun, has added a very interesting born-in-China perspective. As he says:
"I was born in China and raised in its countryside in a small, mountainous village. I've worn a suit and tie in tier-1 metropolises, donned hard hats in tier-2 and 3 cities, and marveled at the rapid growth in rural areas like my hometown. When someone wants to ask me about China, I ask: Which one?"Worth reading, as part of your holiday weekend fare.
