Past China Performance Is No Guarantee Of Future Performance. The Tao Te Ching Says So.
Excellent post over at the perpetually excellent Useless Tree blog. The post is called "China in Three Pictures," and it is on how three (well two anyway) iconic Chinese pictures were (or might be) used to discern China's future and how wrong such discerning turned out to be.
Conclusion of the post is one I very much like and that is how difficult (and ultimately pointless?) it is to predict the future.
Comments (8)
Read through and enter the discussion by using the form at the endnanheyangrouchuan - May 2, 2007 8:57 AM
I like this website better:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_china.html
lonniebhodge - May 5, 2007 9:55 AM
Hey, it made the seer to Nina Wang in HK a billionaire!!!!
Law Office of Todd L. Platek - May 5, 2007 3:01 PM
The Tao De Jing also holds that water is most powerful because it flows around objects in its way, and also has the power to push and to consume objects. Progress in China is similar, and although not predictable in terms of how institutions may change, it is nonetheless inexorable.
China Law Blog - May 5, 2007 4:36 PM
nh --
Of course you do.
China Law Blog - May 5, 2007 4:39 PM
Even a broken clock is right twice a day (or, if digital, once a day).
China Law Blog - May 5, 2007 4:40 PM
Todd --
Or, to quote from the TV show, Kung Fu: "Look to the water at your feet. Does not the sage say: 'What is more yielding than water? Yet, back it comes again, wearing down the ridged strength, which cannot stand to its strength. What is more forceful than quite water?'"
Law Office of Todd L. Platek - June 6, 2007 7:59 PM
You got that right, Grasshopper.
China Law Blog - June 6, 2007 10:52 PM
Todd Platek --
You got it wrong. You Grasshopper, me Master Po.