The cover of The Economist’s November 13 issue plays on fear to sell magazines.
I haven’t read Buying up the world, The coming wave of Chinese takeovers yet, which is the feature piece. I’ll probably write another post about that once I do.
Instead, I’m writing about the magazine’s cover, which is taking advantage of the West’s PTCSD (Post Traumatic Chinese Stress Disorder) that has roots in the “history” of a fear of the word “Communist”, the Korean Conflict and the Cultural Revolution.
I’m sure most Sinophobes that see this cover will have flashbacks of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the rest of China dressed in drab Mao jackets marching across the world to take possession of everything China buys.
However, Mao isn’t the proper man to adorn The Economist’s cover.
Deng Xiaoping or one of China’s recent presidents (there have been four since the 1982 Constitution) would have been more appropriate.
Why? Because after Mao died in 1976, Deng Xiaoping and his allies rejected Maoist Revolutionary thought and embraced CAPITALISM in a very big way.
In fact, surviving Maoists consider the Party that rules China today to be traitors to Mao and the revolution.
Do you remember the 1980s, when wealthy Japanese spent billions buying property in America then a real estate bubble burst, Japan lost a lot of money, and its economy has been limping since?
If anyone should be afraid, it should be the Chinese fearing spending habits in the US, Canada and Europe where debt and plastic rule.
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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 
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