Sleeping Dragon

The basic problem is still the one I've mentioned -- that these people's thinking violates Comrade Mao Zedong's principle of seeking truth from facts and the principles of dialectical and historical materialism. We have here, in fact, a reflection of idealism and metaphysics. The world is changing every day, new things are constantly emerging and new problems continually arising. We can't afford to lock our doors, refuse to use our brains and remain forever backward. In today's world, our country is counted as poor. Even within the third world, China still rates as relatively underdeveloped. We are a socialist country. The basic expression of the superiority of our socialist system is that it allows the productive forces of our society to grow at a rapid rate unknown in old China, and that it permits us gradually to satisfy our people's constantly growing material and cultural needs. After all, from the historical materialist point of view correct political leadership should result in the growth of the productive forces and the improvement of the material and cultural life of the people. If the rate of growth of the productive forces in a socialist country lags behind that in capitalist countries over an extended historical period, how can we talk about the superiority of the socialist system? We should ponder the question: What have we really done for the people? We must make use of the favourable conditions we now enjoy to accelerate the growth of our productive forces, improve the people's material and cultural life and broaden their outlook.

Deng Xiaping - September 16, 1978

We were a learner and follower in the development of the first generation Internet, but we have caught up with world's leaders in the next-generation Internet, become a first mover, and won respect and attention from the international community," said Wu Jianping, director of the expert committee of the China Education and Research Network (CERNET) and a mastermind in the development of the next-generation Internet in China.

CERNET2 is also the first network based on pure Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) technology, one major characteristic between the current Internet and the next-generation Internet.

Liu Baijia, China becomes IPv6 "First move - December 27, 2004

Here's an even bigger problem: The dustup is distracting Congress from the real threat to their nation's economic future -- fiscal irresponsibility. And China's role in enabling that trend should keep politicians up at night. China isn't hoarding Treasuries conspiratorially. Its $230 billion of U.S. debt holdings aren't the financial Trojan horse some fear -- a way for China to attack the U.S. economy from within. Those holdings have everything to do with maintaining China's 8.3 peg to the dollar. The upshot is that Asia's No. 2 economy has a disturbing amount of leverage over the U.S. If U.S. politicians want to protect national security, they should be looking at how much their government is becoming indebted to China.

William Pesek Jr., Forget Unocal. Real China Risk Is Treasuries - July 6, 2005

China is now No.1 in the world in mobile subscribers and No.1 in Internet users under the age of 30 (there's a much higher skew in Internet usage towards the younger generation in China — 70% of their Internet users are under 30 and 54% are under 24).

The US still has more than twice as many users of the Internet, but China has twice as many mobile phone users as the US. At least half of China's Internet users appear to be accessing it through their mobile phones.

John Hagel, Mary's Back — The Internet, China and Bubbles — October 8, 2005

This great capitalist sponge seems to understand better than the U.S. that a key input for economic growth is human as well as physical: a trained population of knowledge workers.

Despite their grievous lack of both democracy and respect for intellectual property, the Chinese deserve our congratulations for what they have done in education. China has pulled off one of the most remarkable expansions of education in modern times. In just 10 years, it has focused its resources and increased the number of undergraduate-and graduate-degreed individuals enormously--a fivefold increase in one decade.

CNET, Christopher Nordlinger, The folly of ignoring China's challenge — January 5, 2005

Chinese was already one of the hottest languages in the translation industry this year. But next year it will get hotter. I recently asked my newsletter subscribers about this and a whopping 87% agreed -- Chinese is the "it" language in 2006 (and beyond).

John Yunker, Predicting 2006: From eBay to .EU — December 26, 2005

To the west, China is a waking economic giant, poised to dominate the world. But, argues Will Hutton in this extract from his new book, we have consistently exaggerated and misunderstood the threat - and the consequences could be grave

The west is unforgivably ignorant about China’s shortcomings and weaknesses, which leads it vastly to exaggerate the extent of the Chinese “threat”. China is certainly emerging as a leading exporter, but essentially it is a sub-contractor to the west. It has not bucked the way globalisation is heavily skewed in favour of the rich developed nations. Its productivity is poor; it lacks international champions; its innovation record is lamentable; it relies far too much on exports and investment to propel its economy. To characterise China as an unstoppable force whose economic model is unbeatable and set to swamp us - the stuff of almost every ministerial and business lobby speech - is to make a first-order mistake.

The interest of the west is to help China avoid this fate and encourage a peaceful transition to a pluralist China within a legitimate system of accountability; a country that is comfortable with liberal globalisation and the international rule of law. To describe the goal of policy in this way is demanding enough; more demanding still is to execute it. The simple extrapolations of China's growth, predicting that it will eventually become a one-party, economic colossus, lead to an alarmist climate in which it is easier to justify trade protection or, in the United States, potential military activism. Such responses are naive. We have to play it long, encourage and help to co-manage the change that must come. Only thus will the world be a safer and still prosperous place.

Will Hutton, Power, corruption and lies — January 8, 2007