China’s rise: US must be a better version of itself to accommodate the re-emergence of a major power
- Suspicions of Beijing’s intentions must give way to a more realistic assessment of the impact on the world as a once-sleeping giant awakens
- Respect for an ancient civilisation like China must go hand in hand with humility, recognising America has its own problems to fix
It was quite a good romp. There in square five was Elliott, who helped run the college student newspaper way back then, now a professional psychotherapist. A few zoom squares away was lifelong friend, author and noted screenwriter Aaron. Then there was John, zooming in to the virtual reunion of the class of 1966 from what looked like his car or truck.
This past weekend at Zoom reunion seminars at Amherst College, from which I graduated a long time ago, our discussion question was: what was the most important political event that has occurred in our lifetime? Unsurprisingly, each alumnus, taught at Amherst to think for himself (it was once an all-male school), had their own answer.
The unravelling of the DNA code was nominated. So was climate change. The psychotherapist made the case for the late Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann’s championing of the therapeutic validity of LSD. The World Wide Web got votes. So did the worrisome issue of the future direction of the US.
It was hard to argue with such choices, but as panel moderator I tried anyway, and nominated the re-rise of China. I tried not to alienate too many of the Amherst grads, who were well aware of the American sentiment on the East Coast that Beijing was up to no good and never would be any good.
So I backtracked to the end of World War II when Japan, which had invaded just about everyone in East Asia and the Pacific, finally had to close the curtain on its imperial ambition to rule Asia after suffering the horrendous humiliation of the atomic bombing of two of its cities. It was over. China, bloodied as it was, came out on the winning side – with the US. People forget that.