lauren, what do you mean?

如今，几乎所有的老外都应该听说过我们的"和谐社会"这个词。
大概三年前，我头一次见到这个词是在浦东的卢浦大桥后面的一条公路上，以大号字体写在一个宣传牌上面。 在当时这….

You’re blog articles are wonderful. I see that China has become your home. I will be studying there, in Nanjing, come Spring 2008.

I’d love to learn more from you about life in China and would love to keep in contact and even meet up.

What do you say?

Rochelle the Buttafli

It seems a tenable point that most regimes founded by reasonable people aim for some sort of higher ideal. And if they don’t they should. Often this ideal is missed or corrupted, and then (Mr Lenin) “what is to be done”? The USSR and China were founded on a higher ideal that was never achievable, because the route they followed was flawed. Aiming for liberty via unadulterated socialism does not work. And when it failed in these two regimes, the terminology of the aims and ends was used to clothe the hideous mess that ensued. You may recall the “democracy” the USSR enjoyed.

Where did this leave the Chinese leaders?

They realized before the Soviets that any real success for their county, and probably their own hides, depended on obtaining economic growth. But socialism and the planned economy this entails could not deliver this growth. Therefore a laissez-faire approach was required. But this necessitates freedom and liberty in the economic sphere, which is difficult to obtain without general freedom and liberty.

On deciding that that economic freedom must be allowed (to a degree), a higher aim was required to legitimize the regime’s existence and policy to itself, its people and the world.

The natural aim for Zhou Blow or you and me might be liberty via democracy. But this it seems is not on the menu. Some other exotic dishes have been offered: Socialism with Chinese Characteristics; The Three Represents. My own feeling is that The Harmonious Society is more of the same. A struggle to define a political philosophy.

I hope this doesn’t sound too obvious. Interested to hear Da Shan’s point of view.