Two readings and a video

I.

The headline in today's The New York Times certainly got my attention: "How China Can Defeat America." The author, a leading Chinese foreign policy analyst and thinker, considers a lot of things -- competition to the point of war between the two nations, ancient Chinese political theorists and the limits of economic might in global relations. The column was written by Yan Xuetong, dean of the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University, and is worth reading in its entirety, which you can do by clicking here. 

Yan is a controversial figure, criticized by some for his hawkish, realpolitik read of world affairs. Putting those issues aside, this was the section that resonated with me:

"How, then, can China win people’s hearts across the world? According to ancient Chinese philosophers, it must start at home. Humane authority begins by creating a desirable model at home that inspires people abroad.

This means China must shift its priorities away from economic development to establishing a harmonious society free of today’s huge gaps between rich and poor. It needs to replace money worship with traditional morality and weed out political corruption in favor of social justice and fairness."

Anyone who spends time scrolling through the various Chinese state press outlets has read a variation of those lines many times. You hear it in editorials, feature pieces and quotes from senior officials: China must address the interwoven problems of corruption, income inequality and social injustice. But the frequency with which those notes are sounded is paralleled by an absence of any systemic change. 

II.

Shortly after reading that piece I flipped through the back of Sunday's China Daily and saw a review of a stage adaptation of Jin Ping Mei, or The Plum in the Golden Vase  (also translated as The Golden Lotus) . The 16th-century Chinese novel, which I've not yet read, is famous for its depictions of sex and corruption. The Princeton Library version describes the protagonist as a "corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant in a provincial town." To say the least, persons matching that description are still making trouble in China.

China Daily, an English-language state newspaper, sent a reporter to interview the choreographer, Wang Yuanyuan.

Toward the end of the article, a quote from Wang stuck out:

"Jin Ping Mei was written against a background of a decaying society and Wang says that phenomenon is very similar to what is happening now.

'Maybe society today is even worse than what was depicted in the book. People these days are lured by money, and they will do anything to get what they want, without a moral bottom-line,' she says."

During the period between my reading the story this morning and sitting down to write a blog this afternoon, the link seems to have gone bad. It's always difficult to know why these things happen, and it could just be a blip. In the meantime, I'll pass along a screen grab of the page:

III.

The Wall Street Journal has a video up today in which two topics are discussed: 1. The relationship between the rising price of very expensive pink diamonds and Chinese consumer demand for the same. 2. The ongoing saga of Ai Weiwei, an artist provocateur and, increasingly, a symbol of Beijing's crackdown on political speech. The experience of watching one after the other says much about today's China.