Why China is not an international threat

A friend of mine and I were chatting  on FB about the dangers of the Chinese buying into the debts of countries that were in danger of collapsing (greece and ireland for example) and the possible dangers of those moves and that got me thinking about this topic. So thought I would throw my two cents in and stir the pot a bit….

I believe China’s economic and foreign policy reflects a grand strategy for building China into a wealthy and powerful international entity while ensuring the continued rule of the Chinese Communist Party.

This strategy has been necessary to build new sources of political support for the Communist Party as belief in Communist/Marxist ideology has eroded worldwide. This need became particularly acute after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

Chinese leaders have long emphasized the importance of rapid growth as a strategy for regime survival, with the goal of rebuilding legitimacy by demonstrating the party’s ability to build an advanced economy and to raise living standards.

China’s leaders have achieved remarkable success in building a booming economy and holding their political system together after communism collapsed in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Although prospects for continued growth are good, Chinese leaders are faced with an international system dominated by the United States and a globalized world economy where sophisticated multinational corporations possess technology and management skills decades ahead of their Chinese competitors. This could put spokes in the plan of maintaining the current rate of growth, which is essential to distract attention from growing domestic challenges.

China  faces a host of domestic challenges, ranging from environmental degradation produced by headlong growth to social tensions created by rising inequality between coastal and interior provinces and between rural and urban workers.

The party’s response emphasizes efforts to alleviate social pressures by devising economic policies that will produce more balanced growth with fewer negative side effects. This represents an adjustment from previous policies focused on maximizing growth at any cost. But Chinese leaders will still emphasize the importance of continued rapid economic growth for maintaining domestic stability as a prolonged economic slowdown or downturn in growth would aggravate simmering social problems and stoke and stimulate protests.

China’s increased global activism is intended to secure inputs for this rapidly expanding economy while protecting itself against a possible containment strategy by the US. This focus on resource access has led China to build close relations with questionable regimes such as Iran, Sudan, Angola and Burma who share China’s intent in resisting a growing worldwide movement to promote democracy and a known US strategy to intervene in other countries to drive this agenda while securing their own interests.

Beijing has also become increasingly dependent on exports to and investment from developed countries to maintain economic growth and this has made them very uncomfortable and quite possibly led to them investing in those economies as a reciprocal strategy.

It is for these reasons I believe that Chinese moves in international markets are more about protecting their internal interests rather than about taking over the world.

As usual would love to learn more by hearing any views on this.

Some more on Zohar and Marshall

Zohar and Marshall introduced 12 qualities of Spiritual Quotient. 

They derive these principles from the qualities that define complex adaptive systems. In biology, complex adaptive systems are living systems that create order out of chaos, they create order and information and defy the law of entropy.

Those principles are:

• Self-awareness: Knowing what I believe in and value, and what deeply motivates me
• Spontaneity: Living in and being responsive to the moment
• Being vision- and value-led: Acting from principles and deep beliefs, and living accordingly
• Holism: Seeing larger patterns, relationships, and connections; having a sense of belonging
• Compassion: Having the quality of "feeling-with" and deep empathy
• Celebration of diversity: Valuing other people for their differences, not despite them
• Field independence: Standing against the crowd and having one's own convictions
• Humility: Having the sense of being a player in a larger drama, of one's true place in the world
• Tendency to ask fundamental "Why?" questions: Needing to understand things and get to the bottom of them
• Ability to reframe: Standing back from a situation or problem and seeing the bigger picture; seeing problems in a wider context
• Positive use of adversity: Learning and growing from mistakes, setbacks, and suffering
• Sense of vocation: Feeling called upon to serve, to give something back

Source: Wikipedia 

Something to reflect on

Here is a poem I read that really resonated for me. I think it is for every parent/teacher/adult who interacts with every child. Including the child within each of us, that we rarely acknowledge or celebrate.

Don't impose on me what you know,
I want to explore the unknown
And be the source of my own discoveries. 
Let the known be my liberation, not my slavery.
The world of your truth can be my limitation,
Your wisdom, my negation.
Don't instruct me;Let's walk together. 
Let my richness begin where yours ends. 
Show me so that i can stand on your shoulders.
Reveal yourself so that i can be something different.
You will not know who I am by listening to yourself.
Don't instruct me. Let me be. 
Your failure is that i be identical to you. 

From the book of Spiritual Intelligence by Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall. 

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination | Harvard Magazine

Here is one of the best speeches i have had the good fortune to hear about the importance of perspective.

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination | Harvard Magazine

New Year Rituals

Never been big on rituals I cannot relate to. Following rigidly sequenced steps in a language i do not know does not move me at all. For me rituals have always been about their power to evoke a certain set of associations and about getting in touch with something that has the power to move you to a higher plane as a consequence. And i have always been moved by such rituals - the unfurling of the national flag or the getting up to sing the national anthem have been deeply moving rituals for me. Don't get me wrong - I am not against rituals per se. I just need to understand them.

Suddenly this new year eve, I got thinking about the rituals of wishing the old year out and ringing the new one in. And about how differently we welcome a New Year traditionally in India versus how the West has traditionally welcomed it.

Don't know about others but I struggle with integrating the two for myself.

Traditionally, I feel we don't celebrate the new year as much as we observe it. We follow a different calendar for this, have a puja at home or we go to a temple after daybreak and cook a lot of stuff that is special for that day. On the other hand, the english calendar new year has always been about partying on the eve of the new year(with or without  alcohol), spilling over past midnight and celebrating the arrival of the new day and the new year more by the clock than by sunrise. The praying versus the partying captured the essence of the difference for me.

Left me wondering if this may also become meaningless soon - people on TV, celebrating the new year in New Zealand, when it was still only late afternoon here, triggered it for me.

Electricity has obscured the distinction between night and day, industrialisation has obviated the need to be aware of the seasons and globalization and the digital age has meant that time and space distinctions are no longer that relevant.

We work 24/7 with both light and temperature being controlled so we dont need to have a sense of day or night, Alaska or Dubai. We take holidays when we can get the leave sanctioned, when the schools are closed, where the weather is pleasant and there are no adverse travel advisories.
Hooked to our blackberries, day and night, weekday and weekend, spring,summer, autumn and winter dont really matter anymore.Our work and our leisure times are getting intertwined and clear cut boundaries are difficult to maintain today.So what does a new year really signify other than another excuse to party?

Given this reality, what part would festivals, rituals and occasions play in the future? More so as we begin to participate in the rituals and celebrate the festivals of the many  nations (and their dominant faiths) that we have become part of. For example, I have relatives and friends who are more likely to know when Hanukkah or Thanksgiving is, than Mahalaya Ammavasai or Vaikunta Ekadasi. And i wouldn't hold it against them It isn't relevant to their current context.

Would the power of ritual to evoke what was originally intended for a community get even more marginalized? Particularly when our ability, readiness or willingness to craft new rituals for the new contexts we find ourselves in, has never been tested. This too leaves me wondering...

Would love to hear others out on this one.

Yudhishtra and leadership

Have always been interested in the debate between ends and means. If you are too, read this brilliant book by Gurcharan Das - The Difficulty of Being Good. 

Does a just war justify unjust means or can an unjust war fought with just means be condoned? 

This is the central question he explores - the moral dilemmas of Leadership, as seen through the lens of the Mahabharata and its various characters. He explores the challenges that the prominent characters face in the story and their pattern of responses. 

The analysis of Yudhishtra's challenges was an eye-opener. Here was a man who doggedly pursued dharma and satya, and struggled all his life with questions about morality and duty as a Royal versus what he as an individual, outside of his role responsibilities, would have preferred. 

Yet in general, people don't think very highly of Yudhishtra as a leader. He would not have made my list either. When i spoke to friends about this, i found the same response. Arjuna and Karna are the heroes, apart from Krishna. For some it was Abhimanyu. Not one named Yudhistra. 

Maybe we hold his humanness against him. He is not a strong, surefooted leader who rarely betrays any doubt. He is full of questions about what is right and wrong. He is filled with remorse for telling a lie for the sake of victory. He does not abandon his brothers when the Yaksha kills them for their arrogance. Nor does he abandon the dog on his way to heaven. He is willing to question the system's sense of what was right and wrong based purely on roles and devoid of a personal context. Yet he does not have a grand or theatrical style as he goes about all this. He does it with a sense of propriety, restraint and dignity. 

He accepts the inevitability of war and the realpolitiks behind Krishna's strategies. Yet the question of whether just ends justify unjust means never deserts him. For him means are as important as ends. 

Maybe that unsettles us. He is too human to be a leader.

Maybe that is what we need more of today - human leaders.