The University Influence

October 25, 2010

Many American Conservatives and most Sinophobes probably won’t want to learn this but millions of Chinese students from Communist China have attended American universities and colleges and earned degrees.

Many of these students return to mainland China influenced by what they learned in America.

Imagine, when China’s growth to become a modern nation is complete, the country might turn into a republic and/or democracy influenced by America’s “so-called” socialist, liberal institutions of higher education.

I’m sure members of the GOP and the Christian Coalition would much rather have educated these Chinese citizens in conservative Christian colleges and universities. Too bad.

Next time you visit USC, MIT, UC Berkeley, Harvard, Stanford or UCLA, look around.  How many Chinese faces do you see?

In USA Today, there is a piece about Chinese college students flocking to U.S. campuses and says that last year alone, 98,510 Chinese graduate and undergraduate students poured into U.S. colleges and universities lured by China’s emphasis on academic achievement and the prestige of U.S. higher education.

However, this did not start recently and it isn’t free. In fact, it costs a lot of money for a foreign student to attend a college or university in the U.S.

Since the door out of China opened as early as 1980, more than a million Chinese students have graduated from the U.S. and returned to China, which may explain China’s Sexual Revolution in the late 1990s.

It might shock Americans to realize that most of the people in China that have the money to send their children to the US belong to the Communist Youth League or the Communist Party so many of the children of China’s leaders have lived in and been educated in the U.S.

No wonder, China wants to be the next America and people in China stand in line to eat at Pizza Hut.

In fact, if there was a revolution in China to replace the Communist Party, don’t be surprised if the survivors moved to America where many already own houses and have bank accounts.

Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the father of China’s republic, was sent to Hawaii in 1879 where he studied science and Christianity in college.

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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. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 7/7

October 25, 2010

Another reason China is moving toward a more open republic is China’s growing, highly educated middle class. Even most of China’s peasants have seen lifestyle improvements — not as fast as urban areas but there has been growth.

“Growth in (China’s) peasant income, which had reached a rate of 15.2% a year from 1978 to 1984, dropped to 2.8% a year from 1986 to 1991. Some recovery occurred in the early 1990s, but stagnation of rural incomes marked the latter part of the decade.” Source: Asia Times

Between 1978 to 1984, rural income improved almost 100% within six years.  That growth slowed to 14% between 1986 to 1991. 

Yet, Western critics that blast China for this slow growth seldom mention that rural India has stood still for the last twenty years. There must be an unwritten rule about criticizing other democracies, which is censorship.

China’s Western critics act as if they expect an infant to walk the day he or she is born, and run a marathon, become a rocket scientist and a Nobel laureate all within twenty-four hours.

The China Law Blog said I wasn’t being fair to India when I wrote Comparing India and China’s Economic Engines.

In fact, the West’s Sinophobic critics are the ones guilty of being unfair.

China will open the door to more freedom when China is ready and that door is open wider now than it was in 1976.

I never said “when” China would be finished building a more open, modern republic, and it may never happen until a majority of the people demand it and there may even be bloodshed.

However, the signs are there for anyone who takes the time to look.

When China arrives at that destination is in the hands of the planners, engineers, scientists and architects who lead and rule China—not the Western politicians, the media or Sinophobic critics.

In fact, in 2012, the seventy million members of the Party will have an election and the leadership of China will change again.

However, the West will still refer to the elected president of China’s republic as a dictator without mentioning that in a republic not everyone has the right to vote as it was in America in 1776.

Return to Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 6

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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. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 6/7

October 24, 2010

In parts 1 through 5, I provided evidence showing that China is building a republic that may last for centuries.

What is happening on the Internet offers more evidence that China is moving toward a more open society. In China, there are more Blogs than any nation and a free exchange of ideas via e-mails.

In fact, in China there are more people logging onto the Internet than America’s entire population.

China could have limited all Internet use as North Korea has, but China hooked up to the World Wide Web instead.

What are the real reasons China struggles to censor parts of the international internet like pornography, WordPress, Facebook and Blogger? 

Is it possible that China is doing this because they do not have the confidence that most of their people are sophisticated enough to deal with all the crazy ideas floating around in international cyberspace.

Instead, China is opening to the world like a slow blooming flower allowing the people to adapt instead of being overwhelmed, which might lead to a meltdown and a return to chaos and anarchy.

However, anyone who wants to sneak past China’s Net Nanny may do so.

I’ve known people in China who have slipped past the Net Nanny, which is more like a leaky dam getting ready to burst, and it isn’t that hard. It just takes some time. See Tech Crunch for more information about Internet use in China.

Deng Xiaoping was right. If China had the political gridlock and partisieanship that exists in America today, would the Chinese have achieved the goals to modernize that they have? 

Return to Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 5

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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. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 5/7

October 24, 2010

In Part 6, I provided evidence that China is making progress at improving the integrity of its government and legal system.

Returning to the topic of literacy, why would China improve the literacy rate if the government didn’t want to become a republic since illiteracy is the greatest tool of a dictator?

Illiterate people are easier to brainwash, fool and control.

Imagine the effort to raise literacy from 20% in the late 1970s to more than 90% today. Then give birth to a legal system that China has never had before. Source: History of Literacy in China

Why waste this time if the goal wasn’t to build a republic with more freedom for the people?

In addition, China rebuilt all of its major cities, took an electrical grid in 1950 that produced a half megawatt of electricity in a few cities and spread that system over a country about the size of America in a few decades to serve a population of 1.3 billion people.

In comparison, the electrical grid in America took “much” longer to build.

Experts say that the growth that has taken place in China in the last three decades has never happened before in the history of global civilization.

If China wanted to stay a totalitarian government, why bother? 

After all, North Korea lives in a state of never ending Cultural Revolution. The people starve and have few freedoms. Why not copy them? Yet, after Mao, the Chinese repudiated Revolutionary Maoism and opened China to world trade. In fact, China is buying food from all over the world to make sure the people do not starve.

Today, millions of mainland Chinese are global tourists spending billions of dollars in European democracies and in the U.S.  There are also about one hundred thousand Chinese students in U.S. colleges and universities exposed to American ideas and democracy. 

Shouldn’t China’s leaders be worried about this exposure to democracy or is it possible this is what the Party wants?

Return to Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 4

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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. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 4/7

October 24, 2010

In Part 3, I talked about the differences between the Constitutions of the United States and China.

Another sign of China becoming a more open society comes from the Global Integrity Report, which shows America’s overall score in 2009 as 85 compared to China’s overall score of 60.

China legal system had an integrity score of 76.

Consider that China didn’t have a legal system when Mao died— it was a shambles. China had to build a legal system from zero and make it fit the Chinese culture.

I doubt that China will end the death penalty, and I’m sure that China will lead the world in executions for many years to come.

However, recently, several crimes that led to the death penalty were removed from that list and the law was changed so only China’s highest court could hand out a death sentence to a convicted criminal.

Business law was developed first because of world trade and China’s entrance in the WTO.

China integrity score also has inched upward on an annual basis.

In 2007, China’s score was 55, which is considered very weak. However, in 2008, the score was 59 — up 4 points and in 2009, it improved a bit more to 60.

Progress with a country of 1.3 billion people takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight.

Return to Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 3

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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. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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