Please watch this excellent presentation which challenges many preconceptions about both China and the West...

http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_jacques_understanding_the_rise_of_china.html

There is still lot's of people in the west who do not wish to believe that the world power and economy is moving to the east. China is the engine of this change.

The presentation had a good points of this. One main thing of Chinese feeling superiority over other races. The way many western cultures used to feel in the past.

Then again, there might be lots of problems in China in the future. The divide between poor and the rich. Revolution, which has emerged from the poorer people might be on it's way.

There is still lot's of people in the west who do not wish to believe that the world power and economy is moving to the east. China is the engine of this change.

The presentation had a good points of this. One main thing of Chinese feeling superiority over other races. The way many western cultures used to feel in the past.

Then again, there might be lots of problems in China in the future. The divide between poor and the rich. Revolution, which has emerged from the poorer people might be on it's way.

Sorry I can't watch the presentation; still with a slow connection out in the sticks!

China has always felt superior to the rest of the world, even when it patently wasn't in material terms. The name of the country means "The Middle Kingdom", heaven above, the rest of the earth below.

Before the demise of the Ching dynasty, society was pretty well structured. That structure broke down, and new rich classes have emerged in each generation. The new society is, I suppose, a kind of meritocracy, with plenty of corruption embedded. The recent case of Bo Xi-lai is an example of how the central government is trying to deal with corruption.

Perhaps the biggest problem facing the current government is how to relax central management without losing control of the whole. They'll have to do it somehow, to satisfy the aspirations of the newly-educated urban society.

A very good presentation.

Offers a different slant from some of the information posted on TV.