Message from mmoore

[Anonymous]

Two of the points that Clay made were so important, and easy to remember! China is able to justify holding power in the hands of the government if they can do two things: 1) the economy gets better, and 2) they can defend themselves from outsiders. As Americans we always want to say that to everyone else, democracy and freedom are the most important factors, and everyone else wants these. Perhaps, but perhaps not. When I had my course on "Putin's Russia", studying here, then in Russia, one of the things several professors told us was that the reason Russians not just accepted Putin, but liked him was because they were fed up with Yelstsin, the economy wasn't bad, and he made them feel important and proud again. So what if the reigns on freedoms were tightened a little. For some of the teacher-students in our group, this was hard to accept.