Grasping the World’s Biggest Economic Boom
Just read a nicely-written article with interesting statistics about China at The Independent (via Dan over at China Law Blog).
Though China’s market reforms and subsequent economic growth started 30 years ago, it has only been the recent decade where an appreciable amount of the masses are finally grasping just how profound it is. I say “grasping” because even so, the vast majority of them have yet to appreciate or truly understand just what China’s rise to global economic and political prominence will mean, burdened as they are–understandably–by their fears and ultimately their ignorance.
Here is a good excerpt (emphasis mine):
I am not sure we in the West fully grasp the magnitude of what is happening. Intellectually we can see it affecting us but emotionally it is hard to understand that we are moving towards a world where Western ideas, our ideas, will no longer hold sway. China has other ideas. Those will increasingly co-exist alongside ours in shaping global economic and political development….We will not find this comfortable. What we think will matter less and less. But we cannot do anything about it, and in any case, consider the alternative. Would we really want a China that was failing in economic terms, with all the misery that would cause? That would surely be far more dangerous and disruptive to the world than a continuation of China’s thrilling but terrifying success story. (more…)
