Here is one little evidence that supports this guy’s assertions. More cars were sold in China than in US in January. First time in the world recorded history that US was not ranked first in monthly car sales.
http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/daily-news/090205-China-Passes-U-S-in-Auto-Sales/

February 9, 2009 @ 12:40 am | Comment

Chinese people are much tougher and more stoic than the Westerners and possess the survivability as resilient as those lives in Safari. Their rulers in history don’t care about them and subject them to wars, atrocities and abuses without worrying much about their revenge, because they can endure all of these. The exception to this rule is the ostentatious rescue carried out in the aftermath of the earthquake in SiChuan, as it offered an excellent propaganda opportunity to show that the CCP could do a better job than the U.S govt. However, the Chinese people did not challenge the CCP for being so inhumane when the CCP refused all the offer of foreign aids in the aftermath of TangShan Earthquake which happened in 1976 in the scale of at least 8.0 and let countless people die and be maimed needlessly. As usual, the people took such kind of abuse and misfortune for granted and obeyed the govt’s call of self-reliance to be on their own.

Thanks to the Internet age, the people in China also want to be treated decently as the fellow human being in the West and take to the street to demand what they deserve. The govt is always smarter than the people and put a new spin on them by repeatedly saying that prosperity comes at the cost of liberty and recommending the models of Japanese and Korean, whom the Chinese people usually disrespect out of their irrational sentiment of nationalism.

Nationalism is the last resort to keep the discontent Chinese in check and also what keeps them from being able to significantly influence the world, not to mention lead the world.

February 9, 2009 @ 1:11 am | Comment

Hey Richard, haven’t visited PD for a while (immersed in work and wanting to avoid all things China) but have to say the site is really looking good. For a while it seemed that you were ambivalent about maintaining your commitment to the site due to your own workload, but the effort’s paid off. Would be curious to know how US policy towards China will possibly change with the new administration; apart from Pelosi I haven’t heard anything from Obama apart from repeating the old refrain about China needing to compromise on the yuan.

February 9, 2009 @ 8:46 am | Comment

First time in the world recorded history that US was not ranked first in monthly car sales.

Serve, I love the way you (and the reporter) word that, as if cars were being sold during the Neanderthal Age. Maybe a less breathless way would be to say since the 1920s.

Keir, I’m doing the best I can with limited inspiration, too many trolls and lots of personal issues, like how much longer I can stay in China while maintaining a home in the US. About Obama’s policies toward China, I haven’t heard much but I also haven’t been listening (classes every day, part-time work and potentially fatal Internet addiction). The one sense I’m getting is that there’s not a lot of hope that Obama will be good for China. That’s not scientific, however. I think there’s so much on Obama’s plate at the moment, we’re not going to hear much about his policies toward China for some time. He has more acute issues he has to deal with, like keeping America functioning.

February 9, 2009 @ 9:14 am | Comment

Richard,

I’ve noticed that your posts are becoming more pro-CCP as your visa status in China becomes more precarious. Disgusting!

February 9, 2009 @ 10:43 am | Comment

Salamat, please give me a quote that shows I’m “pro-CCP.” One side says I am pro-CCP, another says I am anti-CCP. So I’ll take that as meaning I am doing something right. Your assertion that I would do this for visa purposes (I just got my new 1-year visa last week, by coincidence) is what’s “disgusting.” Believing in China’s people is not the same as being pro-CCP, just as my belief in my own country (now at a low ebb due to the financial crisis) does not make me pro- or anti-Obama.

The CCP is a powerful, ruthless, corrupt, often evil, occasionally beneficial and more often disastrous mechanism – like most dictatorships China has lived under. I can never be pro-CCP. But saying that I believe the CCP will be in power for a very long time to come and will do relatively well in the current crisis is not an endorsement of the party, but a statement of what I see as a probable fact, along the lines that the sun will most likely come up tomorrow.

February 9, 2009 @ 1:23 pm | Comment

Richard, I think Salamat’s comment was an attempt at baiting you and I’m happy to say it didn’t work. Your posts and your editorial choices speak for themselves and are accurately summed up in what you wrote in the preceding comment. Good luck on all fronts (job, house and “internet addiction”)!

February 9, 2009 @ 11:41 pm | Comment

I’m surprised that Chinese car sales goes up. If you want to buy a big American, Japanese, or Korean car in China, you would have to pay about twice the amount than what would an American pays because of the taxes. Maybe the Chinese are giving tax incentives for the Chinese to buy domestic cars.

February 10, 2009 @ 12:12 am | Comment

Richard admits that his China visa was indeed precarious during the period in which the tone of his blog posts changed. Sick!

February 10, 2009 @ 3:22 pm | Comment

“Tina,” as all my friends and colleagues know, my annual work visa expires in mid-February. So, as they do every year in February, my company just renewed my visa for another year.

I think it’s pretty obvious that you’re here to perform the usual slander. Calling someone “sick” over a remark that they’re having their annual visa renewed is, well, sicka bit peculiar.

February 10, 2009 @ 4:39 pm | Comment

Compare this to the 2005 Katrina disaster where the gov’t didnt do anything for many days at the same time people were just waiting for people to “save them” at the New Orleans Superdome.

This is complete bullshit. In fact thousands of locals mobilized all over New Orleans, and people came in with boats from all over to save people. But the government turned soooo many of them away.

I’d have more confidence in pieces like this if they weren’t little more than “A culture beats B culture because A is more hardworking, humanistic, etc” Numbers please.

Michael

February 10, 2009 @ 4:42 pm | Comment

Michael, I happen to agree with you on that one. There were some very simplistic statements in that post, but I liked that it came from someone on the ground in Shenzhen, and I think the sense of optimism is generally real.

February 10, 2009 @ 5:11 pm | Comment

As a person who lived in New Orleans at one point and whose roommate in shenzhen went to Tulane University, I can tell you first hand that people were just sitting there and waiting to be saved at the Super Dome. There was rape, murder, people dying, ect. for multiple days. If you look on youtube, you can see footage of people just waiting for help. You have first hand account of medical staff talking about the situation on the ground as well as looting, .and shooting of people in the streets. It’s not bullshit.

its not which culture is better but that the cultures are different. As someone who is influenced tremendously by both culture A and B, I cant say which one is better. i’m trying to give culture B a better look into culture A (ie. writing a blog).

February 10, 2009 @ 6:00 pm | Comment