Asia

  • China is a strong cultural threat

    Apart from being a threat to other world powers, China occupies a special position in Asia as being the strongest contender for the clearest ethnicity. This is built up out of cultural attributes as well as a strong contemporary tradition of following its inherent learning.

    While many Asian nations are now very political, and even though China has a strong political ethic, it’s the ordinary life that Chinese citizens share between themselves that poses this regional threat.

    There’s a belief that a strain of malaise has struck Asia because of changes to its political organisation, meaning that people feel less strongly about culture and have lost a sense of self in their own places.

    This is therefore the domain that China has the strongest position in. It’s due to a close watch kept over the comings and going of its own borders as well as in the media sphere and across social pathways.

    This draws the ire of powerful Asian figures because Chinese citizens and even the State itself is admired for keeping a sense of originality in its ways and maintaining authenticity in everything it does. This gives it power or influence on a continent that often fights on such matters.

    

  • The State of China is a celebratory one

    In China the method and the measure is to be happy with yourself, and this shows at a time when the new calendar is starting. It’s not a party but an ethic that sees the whole year through.

    The mantras of Chinese wisdom helps us to illustrate this point, but it’s far more broad than that. The point may be reached, but it takes time and effort for the soul.

    President Xi on a visit to meet citizens to celebrate the start of a new year in the traditional calendar.

    The start of a new year enables a moment to end one run and to start another. The symbolic animal is also living in a cycle of reason and knowledge, but its options are limited and its opportunities few.

    The Chinese year is one of business and investment too, and it’s startling how manifest its rise is today in the global landscape. The time is best used wisely, not slowly, and its leadership preach this often.

  • China is engaging, but shut off, from the outside world

    The idea in China of a modern progression but with a rule of Communism with nationalist characteristics is an endeavour that took arduous work and a studious attention to the detail.

    However, while it’s a defining feature of pride in self and community in such tight confines in the most populous country on earth, it hasn’t brought about a closer, lasting connection to other nations.

    This is a curious mark on the global map at present, because in spite of so much diplomacy there is such little dialogue passing between us.

    The UK’s position is careful but clever at the moment. Our leaders have struck out to challenge China’s dominance in the spy space, but has held back on making outright accusations on trade.

    The plan for a new London embassy – dubbed “super” because of its size – is on the backdrop of this tense exchange of terms.

    The presence of more of China’s officials should embolden those given to an outlook of positivity and greater participation in world affairs. It suggests there’s one opening that might work, and it’s a big one.

    The ideal may soon slip into grim reality because such work takes time, enterprise, and more time. This isn’t our strong point at the moment, and no one has offered a contribution that makes it more likely.

    The question isn’t easily answered by risk assessments of facts against truth. It’s the engagement of persons and the results of it that makes for more useful public debate.

    It’s a matter of if we’re ready for the great challenge of seeing eye to eye with another world power, and one that has a particularly special prominence in many of the leading matters of the day.

  • China isn’t necessarily a threat