Reflections on session 11 December 2012

[Anonymous]

The first thing I noticed about the lecture and the readings on December 11th was the similarity between then and now. In the 1860's China was amazed at the difference between progress in China and progress in the West. Ater being isolated from each other for such a long time,since 1644 when the Chinese Navy disbanded China was introduced to many new things. They felt that they needed these new technologies to grow. But they weren't interested in the whole package. They were told by their leaders to learn all the technology but keep their own values. Christainity and Democratic rule was not for them. Isn't China doing exactly the same thing today. They know they need Capitalism to support their growing population. However it must be a Chinese form without Democratic rule. No one knows what that is going to look like, but it will be interesting in the next few years to see what they come up with.

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

This lecture focused on many topics such as Art, Territorial expansion, Politics, and even Tibetan Religion. But the keys were Demographics and Economics, down to opportunity costs and up to the traditional Communist Party 5 year plans, a cookie cutter approach from Stalin's Union of Soviet Socialist Republics spanning seven time zones!!! I was unable to catch the part about when China reached nearly 150 millions already in the 18th Century, assumably far beyond other major countries at the time I believe.

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