If one is to go by the opinions expressed in the English press quite a number is for implementation of the 13th Amendment, contained in the Geneva Resolution either fully or partially. Pieris who is sending out ‘a secret document’ to party leaders appears to be in the same frame of mind with a desire to implement the 13th amendment as far as possible. Those who want to make the district the unit of devolution are also working on the same premise. Furthermore most of these individuals see no wrong in their approach. After all what the Geneva Resolution demands is what we have proposed with our LLRC Report. Is there anything wrong in doing so?
Asia
Books on China have never been more popular, but are they teaching us anything?
Few books have polarized opinion in recent years as much as When China Rules the World, but when it was published in 2009, author Martin Jacques was thinking less about kickstarting an international debate than he was simply relieved to have completed a 10-year project marred by personal tragedy.
“I’d moved to Hong Kong in 1998 with my wife Hari and our 9-week-old son Ravi. We were going to be there for three years and I had ambitious plans for the book as well as a television series lined up,” Jacques says. “But after we’d been there for 14 months, my wife died in terrible circumstances and the book went out of my mind. I was just struggling to survive and I didn’t touch the book for five years. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be capable of writing it, but it must have somehow stayed in the back of my mind because by 2005 I started to work on it again.”
It’s been three weeks now since the start of the standoff with China at Scarborough Shoal, a group of mostly submerged rocks in the West Philippine Sea that the Philippines and China are claiming as part of their respective territories. While a diplomatic way out of the impasse is being sought, a complex signaling exercise involving the deployment and withdrawal of maritime vessels is also going on. What further complicates matters is that the standoff began just a few days before the start of the US-Philippine joint military exercises. The Philippines insists the two events are unrelated, but that is not how the situation looks from a geopolitical perspective.
You don’t pick a fight with someone bigger than you. But if you must defend yourself, you need to find an ally as big as he is, or get the backing of other small entities that may feel similarly threatened. Such support has its own costs. It may mean giving up certain things in return, or going against some cherished ideals. That is what realpolitik is about. It may seek cover behind principles, but, in essence, it is political conduct based on a clear calculation of long-term interests and a sober recognition of the pragmatics of power. Realpolitik applies to persons as well as to states.
LONDON – Several renowned experts from China and foreign countries gathered on Monday todiscuss China’s development model during the London Book Fair, exchanging views on itsfuture.
At the beginning of the forum, Liu Binjie, Director of the General Administration of Press andPublication, reviewed China’s path of development over the past century.
“China has considered about the way of western style, and also once followed the formerSoviet Union’s planned economy,” he said. “But during the course, it found out that only a waywhich complies to its culture and fits its real condition could lead the country to success.”
“How are your Chinese lessons?” we asked our granddaughter Kristin, 8. “So-so,” replied this International School second-grader. “Why?”
“You and Kathie will need Mandarin,” we replied. Katarina, 5, is in kindergarten. Both grapple with Swedish, their mother’s language. Their playmates and nanny speak Cebuano.
“China will irresistibly shape our future,” writes Martin Jacques in the Observer. He updates his 2009 book “When China Rules the World” that foresaw Beijing’s economy overtaking that of the United States after 2020.
Certain arrogant Westerners continue to ignore China’s rise and make negative predictions about China. Martin Jacques, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, wrote in an article recently published on the U.K.-based Observer newspaper. Based on abundant and accurate data, Jacques concluded that the Chinese economy still enjoys bright prospects.
China’s share of world economic output has risen from 2 percent to 10 percent over the past 30 years since the reform and opening-up, and the country has become the world’s second largest economy. The country’s annual foreign trade volume has surged from 500 billion U.S. dollars to 3.6 trillion U.S. dollars in merely 10 years since its accession to the World Trade Organization. As the world’s largest exporter, China has 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars of overseas assets and 18,000 enterprises abroad.
Lau Guan Kim attempts to unravel why China has to have its own unique way of evolving to a nation that is based on its 5000-year unbroken history
Unless the West understands that the Chinese civilisation is an integral part of the nation and its mindset, it will never understand why its democracy and human rights can never supplant the quintessential philosophies and glue that bind China to be a behemoth civilisation-state, as distinct from the Western nation-state]
Martin Jacques, citing from various sources, writes in his book, “When China Rules the World” (Subtitle: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World), the difference the West’s nation-states as contrast to China’s colossal civilisation-state, albeit China, still for allaying West’s Sino phobia, behaves as a Westphalian system of nation-state. It is this moulting of its brilliant civilisation, refined and quintessential culture that she encounters alien Western coercion and diktat that obstruct her very latent and now surfaced rising power as a civilisation-state.
Those following the events in China are intrigued by an important question: What will be its likely future course once it achieves a high level of economic development?
Someone analysing China based on what is happening in the wider world may come to the conclusion that it will follow the Western model and become a multi-party democracy. Whereas those analysing China based on its history and culture may come to the conclusion that it will not follow the Western model even after it achieves a high level of economic development.
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