Leaving China

In rereading these past few posts I am mostly struck by how unqualified I am to say anything intelligent about China.  Whiskers on the back leg of an elephant seems about right.

It's just too big and I don't speak the language.

What I think I know is that we've all been right for a long time - the 21st century will have a lot more to do with China than the 20th century did.  And now that I'm back, I feel a little more qualified to talk, not about China, but what I hear about China in America.

In particular, what I seem to hear a lot is that China is a threat, or at least a challenge.  That we need to take back what we've lost.  That - if this pathetic-sounding dialogue coming out of the Presidential campaign is any indication - America is still the Greatest Place in the World and those crummy Asian countries will always be second place.

America is a great place and I am really glad to be home.  But I think this We're Number One stuff is pretty tiresome.  Yeah we are - it's a pretty hard thing to argue with that, even now - but so what?  What is the point of self-congratulation?  Me, I'm for staying in the flow, keeping busy, ignoring rank.

There is a sequence to things, and I still like the idea that America is Greece to China's Rome.  Maybe that's the book I will never write.  But to the extent that one followed the other -  or succeeded the other - or beat the other...I hope that's obsolete.  I think, can't prove, that we and China could be partners on the way to a future together, with much of the rest of the world, all of them bringing history and energy to a larger whole.