Re: NYTimes.com Article: Letter From Asia: China Is Romping With

Dear Sirs,
To say that China has taken a great leap forward from feudalism to modernity 
in 50 years is fairy tale.  To suggest that China could become the next Core, 
ever, is Alice singing in Wonderland.  To feed 1.3 billion people is 
achievable only because most do not know French fries from crumps.  To be able 
to work on half of mankind so that they all have a big Mac is more than just 
rocket science.
China might have gone through the rude awakening that Napoleon feared; but 
China, with some 60% of its production controlled by American and other 
multi-nationals, will not be able to provide everyone in China the luxury of a 
big Mac anytime soon, let alone another quarter of mankind.
Cao Gengsheng

>===== Original Message From wwagar@binghamton.edu =====
>       I just returned from a month in the Middle Kingdom (i.e., China),
>reading the PRC's daily newspaper in English every day, and visiting ten
>major cities.  In no time at all Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bremer, the
>United States, Britain, and all the rest shrank to insignificance, the
>mere bawlings of barbarians, while the Middle Kingdom went serenely
>forward, cultivating close ties with its neighbors, building, growing,
>firmly occupying the center of the globe as it has--yes, Gunder!--for most
>of the last 2,000 years.  I cannot believe that its phenomenal progress
>can be sustained, for ecological reasons, over 2,000 more years, but right
>now its aspiration to world leadership is entirely credible, and I have to
>wonder if it really matters a damn in the longer run what the United
>States or the midget polities of Old or New Europe do or don't do.  Factor
>in India and Indonesia and the rest of Asia as well, and it's Brobdingnag
>versus Liliput.