China. Most powerful, richest, most populous and - for the moment at least - most controversial country in the world.
Can anyone name a Chinese person?
Go on. Statesman, sports star, inventor, author, inndustralist, benefactor or reality TV star, anyone you like.
Maybe you can. Good for you. I can't, not without looking them up. I know more Belgians.
At some stage over the next few months somebody in the Chinese hierarchy is going to persuade somebody else in the Chinese hierarchy that they maybe ought to appoint a spokesperson who can present their policies to the West in English. Whoever gets the job becomes one of the most famous people in the world overnight.
Gong Li is probably the first one that springs to mind.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise....er...
Jung Chang, she of `Wild Swans' fame. Doubt they'd make her the suggested spokesperson though...
ReplyDeleteThat bloke from Brookside - David Yip? But your point is well made.
ReplyDeleteI have pessimistic view about the rise of China. If (big if) global warming is as disastrous as we are told and if there is a drain on the earth's resources and the US & EMEA think that China is culpable, this will be the basis of future major conflict.
How is China culpable? They haven't decided to produce all our crap off their own bat, they've been asked to - by Western companies. Apart from quirky tinplate toys (copied from Germany), and equally olde worlde photography things (copied from Russia, who copied from Germany) I don't believe I've ever purchased anything 'consumer' that was designed in China rather than just turned out there.
ReplyDeleteSurely as "we've" employed them to do this work then we are culpable for all the consequences that entails, human as well as mineral. Whilst we still have some money left to buy the tat that is.
Zhang Ziyi, Michelle Yeoh, Chow Yun Fat and Jet Li. Outside of the world of martial arts films, um, the tallest bloke in the world? Don't know what he's called, though...!
ReplyDeleteAnon, you write "If (big if) global warming is as disastrous as we are told ..." I admire your confidence. I'd say it's, "If (small if) global warming is as disastrous as we are told ..." And I agree with the chorus of disapproval from Office Pest: it's nobody's fault if not America's. I saw a programme about the coming depression on TV the other night and all these money-making business types (the opposite of the Apprentice candidates ie. actually getting on with it) were saying, hey, it'll be OK, because we can all do business with China, which we couldn't do in the past. For "do business with", read: "sell stuff to" and "encourage to adopt free-market economic models" and "cheer as they get more cars on the road" etc.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to add Wei Tang, who's so good in Lust, Caution, and her co-star Tony Leung, if being born in Hong Kong while it was still a British dependency counts. *lowers flag and salutes*