GOOD MORNING FROM LONDON
In #258 + #259 I looked at two problem areas as China goes forward. First, wage differentials + billionaires, and, second the untrained + lesser-educated 200m who might get left behind as China becomes more mechanised, more robotic, more inspired by Artificial Intelligence. There is a third problem area – the challenge of rising expectations.
There is a balance between China looking back to the Century of National Humiliation when poverty stalled China going forward and, at the same time, looking forward to the Century of Progress as China advances the people’s prosperity.
Generations have different perspectives. Today’s youth can engage with grandparents who can recall the War against the Japanese + the Civil War against the Kuomintang and the challenge for China as she sought to rid herself of the title – The Sick Man of Asia.
Today’s younger generation can glance back and see the Hardship of the Past. But the grandchildren of today’s youth will have a different perspective when, in 2081, they compare themselves with a China today that enjoys a lifestyle that was never in the mindset of the pioneers who set about building the New China in 1949.
The starting point for each generation is quite different and the challenge for China from 2049 will be to prevent their people from moving away from China’s history, its past and its path of progress. Will future youth maintain the determination to build + develop China and its place in the world or will they become more acquisitive, more selfish, less political and less interested in the progress of developing countries across the globe.
This is a challenge for the Party and its leading role in building a prosperous society but one that still adheres to its basic goal of building a society based on Socialism, not Capitalism.
