This post was originally a result of a comment on the China Law Blog, which chastised me because, “He wanted me to provide a super-quick summary of The Economist cover story comparing India with China, but it (I) did not,” which was correct then.
Returning to this subject is because of my twelve-part debate with Troy Parfitt. Mr. Parfitt claimed, “Corruption in India isn’t germane to the debate.” In fact, most if not all of the facts and comparisons used during the debate were not relevant according to Mr. Parfitt unless those facts supported his opinions of China.
At one point, Mr. Parfitt mentioned reviews of his book in Publisher’s Weekly in defense of his book not being racisit. He claimed the South China Morning Post didn’t say that. Neither did Publishers Weekly, the Korean Herald, The Vancouver Sun… and none of the Amazon reviewers [that may change].
However, Publisher’s Weekly [PW] did say this of his book, “The result is mostly travelogue told from an outsider’s perspective, contextualized with overviews of major events in Chinese history. Parfitt argues that China will not rule the world, because as a nation it is more interested in the appearance of success than actual substance. He suggests that culturally, China has little to offer…” In addition, PW says, “his book lacks the precise facts and figures that he decries in other books promoting Chinese dominance.”
Basically, this is what the China Law Blog complained of in my post, Comparing India and China’s Economic Engines.
The facts and figures missing from Mr. Parfitt’s “Why China Will Never Rule the World – Travels in the Two Chinas” are important as the China Law Blog says. To judge one country without comparing its government, economy and culture to other countries offers no balance for readers to make informed decisions.
Continued on January 1, 2012 in he China-India Comparison with Lots of Facts – Part 2
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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Note: This revised and edited post first appeared on October 22, 2010 as India Falling Short
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Do you mind if I quote a few of your articles as long as I provide credit and sources back to your site? My blog is in the very same area of interest as yours and my visitors would genuinely benefit from some of the information you provide here.
Please let me know if this ok.
Of course, be my guest.
[…] January 2, 2012, Sid said, “You’re a mythomaniac, a propagandist, and endorser of one of the most repressive regimes […]
[…] reason for this post is due to a recent comment made by Troy Parfitt in another post. “You’re a mythomaniac, a propagandist, and endorser of one of the most […]
Troy Parfitt said “I never mentioned your wife Lloyd. You’re making stuff up or going senile”
Now I understand Mr. Parfitt’s opinion of Confucianism but the concept of respecting your elders is not just part of Chinese society. I mean if we were to be as crass and as lacking in decency as Mr. Parfitt, we could similar call him a loser in life, whose sole qualifications in life is to have been an expat English teacher for 8 years. Even if we look beyond the meager expectations for overseas English teaching and the escapists ilk that is attracted to it (especially when they stay for EIGHT years), we can also point out that Mr. Parfitt, however he may hate China or Chinese culture owes what little he has achieved to it. The irony being that without China’s rise and the western anxieties that this produced, there would be no interest in a third rate travelogue such as his two books. No publishers would touch it, there would be no China bear crowd to buy it, and Mr. Parfitt would have been just a another history major that failed to land a job in his own field of study due to crap grades and being totally unexceptional.
Thanks Xiaohu, couldn’t have said it better 🙂
Might be relevant. The RAND corporation (US military and governmental thinktank) published a report about the prospects of India and China in 2025.
They are a scientific thinktank that recruits academia, so it’s full of facts, figures, graphs etc (all sourced).
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG1009.html