All eyes on China

I got a request to blog more frequently. It very sweet and it made me smile but in order to do it, I’ll have to post more of my silly thoughts while I chew on those that surround my days and weeks and sometimes months, like what I’m thinking right now about China.

This month’s issue of National Geographic is all about China, every page. It's excellent. I love the timing of this magazine and I think they’re right on; in the very near future, the whole world is going to be looking at China. Not just the Chinese government that suppresses rights and imprisons those that speak out against it and not just the China that’s buying the world’s debt, investing in resources in Africa and South America and not just the China that’s hosting the Olympics.

I have yet to find someone who agrees with me but I’ll even go one further. Not only will the world be all about China and the Chinese people, soon, it will no longer be all about the United States. It’s already happening in conversations with friends, relatives and my parents. I can’t get into any conversation without someone bringing up what China is doing. All of a sudden, they’re in everyone’s country and everyone’s business.

There's a great article on WorldChanging about a collaboration between photographer Paolo Woods and journalist Serge Michel at FotoGrafia, the 7th edition of international festival of photography which runs until May 25th in Rome. Their presentation follows China's industrial neo-colonialism in Africa. The photos of Chinese running factories and building local economies and Chinese being taught by Africans in their classrooms are amazing. You can see all the photos from China's Wild West under stories, on Paolo Wood's website:


China is home to one of the oldest continuous civilizations on earth. They are by far the most populous country, making up 20% of the world’s population. There are more people on the Internet in China than in any other country, including the U.S. They are expected to overtake us as the world’s largest economy in less than 10 years. Over 30% of the population call themselves religious and that number is growing. 45% of women say they don't want to give up their careers to have children.

They are the world leaders in manufacturing, and in a few short decades, they have grown a rich class and an enormous middle class with healthy appetites for domestic and foreign goods and resources. They have quickly embraced the West’s competition for success and all the stress and malaise that goes with it. They still cannot freely surf the Internet or speak their mind but those days are numbered. As they continue to embrace technology, art and imported culture, they’ll find themselves in a much more visible role in the world struggle for human rights.

Most Chinese in school are now studying English and their English speakers outnumber those in the United States. There’s a mass migration going on of people from the country to the city and with increased wealth and population density comes a frenzy of information sharing and a demand for more freedom. I predict that in the next few years China will have a cultural explosion, exporting and importing people and culture with the same voracity that they have adopted everything else.

China is dealing with the issues we’re all dealing with, except in all cases their situation is already more dire. They need to provide healthcare for the biggest baby boomer population in the world, a generation that has less children to provide for them due to the one-child policy. They have the highest statistic for air pollution related deaths, have built more mega dams than anywhere in the world, and have deforested and leveled mountains to the point of serious environmental erosion. They’re only now beginning to embrace archeological digs and animal conservation. They’re dealing with a rapidly growing disparity between rich and poor, massive urbanization, and a serious shortage of natural resources.

Natural disasters are a constant but this time the Chinese are starting to ask questions like why so many schools collapsed in the recent earthquake. We’re already seeing a comparison between how China handled their rescue efforts compared to the disasters in the rest of the world. The incredible level of humanitarian aid offered by regular citizens has put the government in an uncomfortable position. No longer a closed society, there are at least three Flickr groups with photos from the earthquake: china 512 earthquake, Sichuan Earthquake 2008 and Just The News (were you there? - if not, don't add!)

They’ve turned the spotlight on themselves by bidding to host the Olympics and I’m afraid it isn’t going off for a while. I predict that the era of all eyes on America is coming to an end. The question is, will American eyes remain closed to the outside world or will we begin to learn by observing others?