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.
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Comments
I like this website better:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_china.html
Posted by: nanheyangrouchuan | May 2, 2007 8:57 AM
Hey, it made the seer to Nina Wang in HK a billionaire!!!!
Posted by: lonniebhodge | May 5, 2007 9:55 AM
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.
Posted by: Law Office of Todd L. Platek | May 5, 2007 3:01 PM
nh --
Of course you do.
Posted by: China Law Blog | May 5, 2007 4:36 PM
Even a broken clock is right twice a day (or, if digital, once a day).
Posted by: China Law Blog | May 5, 2007 4:39 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?'"
Posted by: China Law Blog | May 5, 2007 4:40 PM
You got that right, Grasshopper.
Posted by: Law Office of Todd L. Platek | June 6, 2007 7:59 PM
Todd Platek --
You got it wrong. You Grasshopper, me Master Po.
Posted by: China Law Blog | June 6, 2007 10:52 PM