I went to China on business for six depressing weeks in 2000. I couldn’t wait to leave and was glad when I could return to the normalcy of Los Angeles.
In 2000, China was described in the press as an emerging industrial and economic colossus. The Pu Dong airport in Shanghai was an engineering marvel. It was the largest building I’d ever seen, despite limited visibility within the building due to indoor environmental haze. It was so large that I couldn’t see the other end of the terminal for the same reason that faraway mountain peaks fade into the sky.
The airport seemed larger than necessary, because on both occasions I had to be there, it seemed empty. I asked my translator why the building was made so big when there were so few passengers.
“It is because China is growing. It was built for the people of tomorrow.”
We got into a sleek Mercedes sent to pick me up. We drove on newly built highways that seemed deserted thanks to ten lanes and only one car using them. Again, overbuilt to an optimistic spec based on projections for economic growth. Shadowy rooftops rushed past below us as we sped toward our destination. Later, I learned that the elevated highway crossed above shacks that were little more than rubble rising out of trash.
It took an hour to reach our destination, but I didn’t get a sense of the place until daylight the next morning. The city I was in, Suzhou, was completely unlike the futuristic airport in Shanghai. There was garbage, disrepair, and outdated infrastructure everywhere I looked. It seemed that China was trying to salt the mine to make it look like they were more prosperous than they were.
Over the next few weeks, I was able to confirm my suspicion. It turned out that the only modernized portions of China were the places foreigners were allowed to visit, and there weren’t many of those. I had slipped through the net with my surprise inspection visit to a subcontractor doing work for my company in LA. At the time I was there, I was told there were only seven other foreign visitors, and one of them was with me. This is in a city of one million.
It’s been twenty-four years since I was in China. Maybe by now they have become the economic, industrial, and military powerhouse they expected to become. I doubt it because the China of 2000 may as well have been the China of 2000 BC mixed with a train wreck full of modern but broken technology. The reason China was like that is because it is a communist country. Like all communist countries, it suffers from lack of chi, or spirit.
Maybe I suffer from lack of imagination. Maybe China is as powerful as they claim to be. I don’t buy it. They lied before, to themselves and the rest of the world, during their Great Leap Forward, when they pretended to have strong industrial capabilities by melting down household pots, pans, and even bicycles. The salted the mine then, they were doing it in 2000, and I see no reason to think they aren’t doing it now.
The only people with chi in China right now are Falun Gong, and they aren’t going to invade Taiwan. I believe China will invade, but Taiwan is better able to defend themselves than it looks. The only technology China needs, and needs badly, is true Democracy.
why did you put a picture of a young cat stevens in your story?
is china where his descent into madness began?
just kiddin' thanks again for all you do.
Since you mentioned Falun Gong, I remembered an Epoch Times video I had seen about it. Here is the gift link for you to watch it when you’d like:
Full Documentary: ‘Up We Soar’ Brings to Life a True Story of Courage
https://link.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/epochtv/programming-alert-documentary-film-up-we-soar-brings-to-life-a-true-story-of-courage-3623576?utm_campaign=app-cc&utm_source=ref_share&utm_medium=app&c=share_gift&pid=iOS_app_share