China Today

One out of four people in the world is Chinese, and lives in China, the most populous nation in the world. The historical symbol in Chinese writing for the name ?China? means ?center of the world,? and that is how the Chinese today see themselves. They invented algebra, gunpowder, and the compass before it was known in the west. They were the most advanced civilization in the world for two thousand years. But 1850 British gunboats in the Canton harbor began 100 years of foreign dismantling of traditional China. Rebuilt by the communists beginning in 1949, China today is acutely aware of its longer 2000 year history as ?Center of the World.? With a modern (miraculous) economy, they have become the consummate ?capitalist weasels,? with a one-party government. Yet, there are forces within China today that want a more demonstrative foreign policy, while others want more civil rights and the end to one-party rule. Still they manufacture most of what the U.S. imports from overseas. They love to send their children to U.S. schools. Their new modern middle class can be seen as tourists in London, Rome, and the Grand Canyon. Though wrongly labeled by the West as Soviet allies in the cold war, they are their own people with a long and proud history. They also like consumer goods, iPods, driving new cars, owning their own homes, and being capitalists in a communist country. This is China today.