ACT II 2011 An Insider's View on China and Its Impact on the World

Eric Li interviewed by Anand Giridharadas

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Anand Giridharadas
• Eric Li
• actii2011
• aspen institute
• china

[TheAimlessRoad]

The Chinese are probably the only people who make sense in the world these days... Western "individualism" is a ploy designed enslave you and take power away from the people as a whole.

[snorman1911]

China is the best. I hear Foxconn is hiring!

[nbuddies]

this scares me

[bg24955]

Western democracy is borne out of the struggle between decentralized monarch and aristocrats - each maximizes their interests and minimizes the constraints. They broke a truce called “the constitution”. Since the aristocrats don’t trust each other, a code of conduct is breached to render each side incompetent, called “the check and balances”. The king is excluded from the League of Gentlemen called “the Congress”. What’s the moral basis, I wonder? Or put it simply who is the good guy?

[MrOkadaman28]

This is all nonsense, all of it.

[jchien]

As a venture capitalist in China, Mr. Li must gain the favors and support of the Chinese government. His pro totalitarian system of government stance is perhaps not a conclusion of purely intellectual conviction. How conveniently Mr. Li excused the disastrous mismanagement of Mao with China's economic success today. It is not healthy to idealize Maoist China and China is successful today precisely because the party abandoned Mao's harebrained ideas. Mr. Li lacks intellectual integrity.

[jchien]

I fail to see anything unique about the heritage and traditions of Chinese political system and the culture such a system fosters: a feudal empire and a culture defined by an ideology - Confucianism - that reinforces the rigid social hierarchy and status quo, much like how Christianity functioned during the middle ages in the West. Mr. Li wouldn't be the eloquent free thinking person he is today if he never left China.