What worked in the post-global financial meltdown era of 2008-2014 will not work the same magic in the next seven years. I am often amused by the Western media’s readiness to attribute godlike powers of long-term planning and Sun-Tzu-like strategic brilliance to China’s leadership. A well-known anecdote illustrates the point.
Zhou Enlai, Premier of China in the Mao era, who when asked by Henry Kissinger about the French Revolution, is reputed to have replied, “It’s too early to say.” This is generally taken to express the Chinese Long View, i.e. that the events of 1789 are still playing out. But accounts of those present discount this interpretation. Zhou understood Kissinger’s query as being about the 1968 general strike in France. That social revolution was still actively in play in the early 1970s when Zhou and Kissinger were meeting, so the time frame was definitely present-day, not the 18th century.
This post was published at Charles Hugh Smith on MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2015.
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