Internal Troubles, External Threats +

It is hard to believe that given China's current economic superiority in the world, that it has had a very tumultuous relationship with a variety of countries. In a way, it is like just about every hollywood movie:

The movie opens with China as a young kid playing around with the other countries. Europe is the biggest and soon starts to pick on the other countries, taking their lunch money and beating them up when they resist. Soon the other victimized countries start to pick on any country smaller than them, and China is near the bottom of this hierarchy. Two opium wars, internal rebellions, and a dependent economy later, and China is in pretty bad shape. This is where the music winds up and we get a montage of China starting to rebuild itself. The movie ends with China as a huge superpower in the world, while most of the other countries are suffering from large economic depressions. But is this really a happy ending?

As I read about the problems that China faced, I see many of them still in their current country. The textbook talked about massive wealth disparity between the ruling elite and the huge numbers of farmers living in poverty. Even today, wealthy as China is, the majority of it's people are still living in that abject poverty. The textbook talked about the rebellions of the masses against ineffective and oppressive governments. While I would definitely not categorize the government as ineffective over-all, it is in certain aspects such as providing a decent standard of living for the masses. In terms of oppressive, I would absolutely say it fits the bill. So I guess while for the country of China, the movie seems to have a happy ending, for the people it might be considered something else. I guess we'll have to wait for the sequel to find out.



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Reading the plea from the Queen of Hawai'i, I was touched by how eloquently she managed to use many of the Christian concept that the U.S. was touting so highly to serve as arguments against the United States. Her letter is a particularly strong appeal to the United States, as it suggests similar arguments to those that the US made against England, such as dignity and the right to have their own form of government.