The Dangers of the Korean Incident

July 30, 2010

Sunny Lee writing for the The Korea Times reports that the majority of Chinese policymakers and academics feel that the Cheonan incident, where a North Korean torpedo allegedly sank a South Korean navy ship, “may” not be true. However, that doubt is not the only factor playing a crucial role in Chinese decision-making.

The Chinese also feel that the US and South Korea are politically motivated and overreacting. China sees the incident as part of the 60-year-long hostility between the two Koreas. In fact, China wants the US, South Korea and North Korea to pull back from the incident.

China’s opinion may be the best advice. 

If you do not agree, consider World War I, the “Great War” if a war may be called great. World War I was not caused by dictators hungry for power as in the case of Mussolini and Hitler and the military oligarchy that ruled Japan during World War II.

World War I was caused by a strong sense of nationalism and emotions that were allowed to rule the day. Strong feelings of nationalism fed hatred in pre-war Europe. It turned Frenchman against German and Russian against Austrian.  Source: Causes of World War I

Regarding the Cheonan incident, China is the cool head while the hotheads are the US, South Korea and North Korea. If these hot heads prevail, how much suffering and death would add to the 45 deaths already caused by the sinking of the Cheonan?

The match that lit World War I was the assassination of one man, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on June 28, 1914.  By the end of the war in late 1918, fifteen-million people had been killed, making the war one of the deadliest in history. 

Does the world want that in Asia?  America’s Military Industrial Media Empire might, but China clearly doesn’t—evidence that war is the last thing China wants.

Discover more about China and North Korea

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

A High Price for Chinese Porcelain

July 30, 2010

Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province is a well-known Chinese porcelain city and has been an important production center in China since the early Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). Chinese porcelain originated in the Shang Dynasty (16th century BC). Source: China Paper Online

Frances Miller writes about collecting antique Canton china at Suite 101.com. He says, “Since the 18th century, blue and white porcelain china originating from the port of Canton has been filling cabinets in America… and was a staple on the dining tables of such prominent Americans as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.”  

“The demand for Chinese products—tea, porcelain, silk, and nankeen (a coarse, strong cotton cloth)—continued after the Revolution. Having seen the British make great profits from the trade when the colonies were prevented from direct trade with China, Americans were eager to secure these profits for themselves.” Source: Early American Trade With China

This hunger for Chinese products, while the Chinese found little in the West to buy, led to the Opium Wars, which Britain and France started and won to force China to even the trade imbalance. Then China sold the West silk, porcelain and tea while the West sold China opium.

Today, we still hear angry voices complain about the unfair trade imbalance between China and the US. Can anyone blame China for maintaining a powerful military?

See The Accidental Discovery of Gunpowder

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Growing Education Gap between the US and China

July 28, 2010

G. E. Anderson, The China Tracker, takes a post from Computerworld about “China is getting ready to clean America’s technological clock,” and expresses an opinion that even if China graduates more scientists and technicians than the US, nothing is being done to nurture the kind of creative and critical thinking that produces innovation. He goes on to say that few in China have a passion for what they are learning.

Anderson is wrong.

The Chinese Collective Culture at Work
An example of cooperation!

The Chinese collective culture has a long history of innovation. The Chinese invented the compass, paper, the printing press, gunpowder and the multistage rocket. Without those Chinese innovations, I doubt the West would have the civilization it has today.

In December 2009, the Cornell Daily Sun reported that 45% of foreign students at American graduate schools are from India and China. In 2008, some 672 thousand international student attended U.S. colleges and universities. Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education

Comparing the motivation of Chinese to American students is like comparing Red Delicious apples to Chinese dumplings. To a Chinese student, the pressure to measure up is always there, which explains why our daughter (my wife is Chinese and grew up in China during Mao’s Cultural Revolution) graduated from a US high school with a 4.66 GPA and straight A’s since she was five. Stanford University accepted her as a Biology major and she has plans to pursue a medical career. Since she speaks both languages fluently, she may take her skills to China one day.

Most American parents could care less and say, “Go have fun. Do what you want to do. Follow your passion.” If anything, this type of thinking will be the downfall of America. I know. I taught in the US educational system for three decades and this self-esteem cancer is still spreading.

Most Chinese students set goals and work “hard” to gain “face” for his or her family, while most Americans don’t set goals since they are too busy having fun and chasing passion. In fact, China has been a collective culture influenced by Confucius and Laotse for more than two thousand years.

While China graduates more than 30% in the sciences and engineering, America graduates that percentage in psychology and the arts and less than 5% in the sciences.

If creative and critical thinking isn’t being focused on in China, it is in the US and hundreds of thousands of Chinese students return to China each year after graduating from US institutions (mostly in the sciences), and many teach in Middle Kingdom universities imparting what they learned in the US to the next generation of Chinese.

For example, a Chinese immigrant friend of ours came to the US in the 1980s and earned his PhD in the sciences. Today, he is the department chair in the Chemical and Materials Engineering Departments of two universities—one in China and the other in the US. His innovative skills are so valuable that both universities cooperate so he can fly between countries sharing his skills and knowledge in NanoScience in Biomedicine. He’s published two books on the subject in both countries and languages.

If that isn’t enough, recently China built a super computer that equals what the US has and China is the only nation with a viable space program.  On top of that, China is the leader in green technology (solar and wind) and has developed an all-electric car ahead of the US.

This all happened while the US has been mired in partisanship and Tea Party Politics while the children are out chasing their passions.

See Investing BIG in Education

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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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2 Comments | America, China, Confucianism, cultural differences, education | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

From China to America with Love and Compassion

July 26, 2010

This post isn’t what you might expect. This is about one of the Lost Daughters of China being adopted by a loving American family.  I wrote a similar story in Earth to Earth, Dirt to Dirt, Ashes to Ashes. However, this story may have a different ending.

In this story, Gillian Wong, the Associated Press, writes in The Washington Post about another adopted girl from China. Katie is 16, and she might die from an aggressive form of leukemia.  Her only chance may be a donor. To find one, Katie’s American mother, Sherrie Cramer, traveled to China in an attempt to save her daughter’s life.

“In the industrial city of Liuzhou, where Katie once lived, the head of the local Red Cross office, Song Xianmin, organized meetings with reporters and visits to a blood donation bus and Katie’s old orphanage.

“We are very touched that you would come from so far away to try to find a match for a child of China, whom you have treated as your own family,” says Song, a thin, bespectacled man.”

Since I lost a close friend to leukemia, I’m aware of how heart wrenching this can be and wish the best for Katie and her family.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Leave a Comment » | America, China, health care | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Serious Spy Games

July 25, 2010

Am I wrong?  I read George Jahn’s Associated Press piece about spies on Yahoo.com, and got the idea that the author/editor was complaining. “Emerging giants such as China pose different threats as they use the most sophisticated cyber technology to snoop on established world powers.”

Does the CIA snoop? What kind of threats does China pose? In fact, what kind of threat does the US pose to China? Using the word SNOOP paints a picture of some pervert hiding in the bushes at night watching you undress through your window. I also question the use of the term “established world powers”.

Study history and you discover that power shifts all the time.  China was an established world power for more than two thousand years until the West got the upper hand during the 19th century. America didn’t become an established world power until after World War II and keeping that status has come at a steep price.

At one time, China was the established world power and nations like France, Germany, Russia, Japan, Great Britain and the United States were the emerging powers that posed threats to China and the price China paid for that assault was terrible. Now that China is on the way back, the nations that challenged China less than two centuries ago are complaining.

Interesting. I thought all was fair in love and war for both sides.

See The First Emperor: The Man Who Made China

______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Leave a Comment » | America, China, politics | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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