Resurrection of Universal Health Care for America

Two weeks before the Easter Sunday when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus after his crucifixion, U.S. House of Representatives passed with a narrow margin (219 Democrats to 212: 178 Republicans and 34 Democrats) the U.S. Senate Health Overhaul Bill from last Xmas Eve.  President Obama signed it into law two days later at the White House on Tues, March 23, the first universal health care legislation in American history.   

There were no big celebrations other than a brief speech for such a historical event.  There are many unfinished business and political and legal battles in coming weeks, months and years as democrats in Senate try to pass the companion amendments from the House.  Meanwhile, the President has begun the journey of convincing the skeptics and persuading the non-believers to increase the support and to mitigate possible negatives in the November mid-term election.  One thing for sure though, barring the unlikely event of an unfavorable ruling of the constitutionality of the bill by Supreme Court down the road, (near) universal health care is now the “law of the land”.  At last, U.S. “has arrived at the 20^th century” (as one French news article put it) and joined all other industrialized nations to have an estimated 95% of its legal residents be covered by some health care plans.  For a detailed time line of the recent development of the health care reform, see e.g., the compilation by the Independent Blue Cross.  

It appears that President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi deserve most of the credits.  They did not back down when the pundits, cynics and opponents declared the year-long effort was dead as Democrats lost the super-majority in the Jan 19^th Special Election of Massachusetts (Republican Scott Brown was elected senator to fill the vacated seat from  Edward Kennedy’s death). They did not abandon the principal interlocking components of the proposed reform for this extremely complex social-political-economic problem when no consensus would ever be developed.   They did not scale back or move back the goal post when some supporters and believers thought salvaging what they could would be the only practical thing left to do.   They did not waver nor yield to pressure when many suggested graceful political exit under the cover of bipartisanship and when Tea Party and fringe groups made disruptive noises that hijacked the agenda and dominated the media for months.  Instead they worked hard to secure the needed compromise and agreement across Senate and House democrats and resurrected the bill successfully, recognizing this is the last chance to complete this top priority of president’s domestic policy.

Universal Health Care as a dream has eluded Americans for a century since President Teddy Roosevelt first proposed it and lost the 1912 Presidential election (as the candidate of short-lived  Progressive Party).  Since then, practically all 20^th century American presidents of the Democratic party and Richard Nixon, a Republican, had tried and never got very far with it; see e.g., Tim Foley’s 2009 article.  There is a good reason - there are a number of legitimate, deep-rooted philosophical and ideological debates on this issue that unlike most others, touches directly on everyone’s life and nerve.  But time is running out as health care cost became a drag of the nation’s economy. 

As far as American’s subconscious goes, there are three difficult hurdles to overcome in getting most Americans to embrace easily the notion of universal health care.  They have been repeatedly used by the oppositions throughout this and previous political debates with mix of flaming populist arguments, scare tactics and genuine beliefs.  These three are: individual freedom vs. government intrusion, free-market capitalism vs. socialism, state rights vs. centralized federal power.  How many times have we seen any proposal of government involvement in health care reform has been construed as intrusion of government to individual’s right to choose and to the free-market even though the largely unregulated market has failed to produce necessary competitions to bring down the cost and when the disadvantaged are denied minimum access and care (e.g. for pre-existing conditions) without the society’s help?  The last argument is a legalistic one and will have to be resolved in court.  However it defies the logic to think that Congress cannot create legislations for the nation on cross-state matters.   The bottom line is the opposition simply wants status-quo and is not interested in changes.  All those arguments are merely arguments to slow down or to derail needed changes. 

The significance of this historic event cannot be understated.  When was the last time you saw a major social-political policy proposal was voted?  As President Obama himself put it when he spoke at the White House right after the House passed the bills late Sunday evening: “… This is what Change looks like…”  For those who thought he was a young and naive politician who was just full of ideals with rhetoric, and for those who thought “Yes, We Can” was just a campaign slogan, the passage of this bill has left no doubt about Obama’s determination for change and skills to govern.  His courage and the passing of health care reform alone will assure President Obama be one of the most important American presidents although it is still too early to talk about the outcomes and other accomplishments.

I don’t know if there will be sufficient mechanisms, tools, and balancing forces to bring down the escalating cost of health care.  But I do know one thing:  health care would have continued to spiral up out of control if we did not make drastic changes to the current system.  I am thrilled that the nation took such a giant step forward and demonstrated that significant reform is possible in American-style democratic society.  Most of all, I am happy that American people can accept the social responsibility of health care for all that I believe, is simply the moral and the right thing to do.

Talk to you soon!

Chi-Town

With a population of more than 2.8 million, Chicago is the third most populated city of U.S., after New York and Los Angeles.  Founded in 1837 and Located at the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, Chicago is the geopolitical and transportation center and the hub of mid America.  Despite the changing economic landscape, Chicago has retained its influence and prosperity as it had successfully developed into a global financial and business center.

Chicago is well-known by its nickname of “Windy City” although the data suggests that the average annual speed of wind in Chicago is not particularly high: it is 10.3 mph compared to Boston’s 12.4 mph.  It is true however that there is a significant wind tunnel effect when you walk around its street grid and you could encounter sudden gust of wind anytime in the year, especially in winter. 

When in Chicago, there are a few must-dos and must-sees.  On top of my list is the Art Institute of Chicago that is associated with the famous School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is the second largest art museum of America, after the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York.   It has a huge and exquisite collection of arts from all over the world and is best known for its French Impressionist and Post-impressionist collections, among others.  

Prominently at display in the museum is its most treasured collection - the large and important (approximately 7x10 ft) iconic painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges-Pierre Seurat, see photo at right.  It took Seurat two years (1884-1886) to complete the work, with which he started the Neo-Impressionism movement and demonstrated the application of scientific theory of perception and optical laws to create harmony and emotion (as opposed to colors blended on canvas).  It is an astonishing work that captured the park atmosphere of congregating classes of French people when frozen in time with a single distinct motion by a little girl.

100 from away in the next room, there is the 1877 painting Paris Street, Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte (see photo at right).  It is an unusual pioneering photo-realistic work with which Gaillebotte delivered the effect of focal length and depth of field in photography.  The blinding brightness of hidden sun in a rainy day cannot be mistaken as pedestrians moving in all directions at this busy intersection.

Then there is the Pablo Picasso’s 1903 The Old Guitarist during his “Blue Period”.  I just cannot comprehend how a 23 years young man can see and touch the human soul so deeply with simple colors and a broken body.  According to the Wikipedia article, the painting had inspired Paul McCartney, a member of the Beatles, to write a song (click to here to hear the story and the song) and poet Wallace Stevens to write a poem.  Since I can’t do either, I bought a poster and planned to hang it up in our living room.  If I stare at it long enough, perhaps muse would come?

Similarly, literature can inspire painters as well.  A good example is Eugène Delacroix’s 1826 paining Combat of the Giaour and the Hassan that was inspired by the important romantic Orientalism poem The Giaour of Lord Byron in 1813.  700 lines of poetry was transformed into a 25x30 inch space where love, betrayal, and revenge was about to be settled in the last strike.

The Institute has an excellent collection of American Modernism works.  The most popular and easily recognized would include Edward Hopper’s 1942 Nighthawks and Grant Wood’s 1930 American Gothic.  The collection of Chinese arts is not nearly as impressive as Museum of Modern Art in New York but there is an interesting large statue of Bodhisattva from Tang Dynasty more than 1200 years ago.  Rarely you see such statues in the pondering position.  Above are just few highlights and the best way to appreciate the arts is to spend a day at this fantastic museum.

North of the Institute of Art in Chicago is the Millennium Park that is a section of the larger 319 acres Grant Park, named after the American Civil War General and United States President Ulysses S. Grant.  This is the very place where before the midnight of November 4, 2008, President Obama gave his victory speech of the presidential election to 250,000 people, many with tearing eyes.  There are several intriguing sculptures and facilities in Millennium Park.  The most exciting and popular is no doubtedly the Cloud Gate, a three-story, 110-ton reflective steel sculpture by the India-born British sculptor Anish Kapoor.  With its mirror like surface, one can see a distorted oneself, the skyline, the sky a small distance away from it (see photo below on left). What is more amazing is you can literally interact with it and become a part of it, that would explain its popularity.  The photos below in the center and right give you some ideas about what it is like when you touch it and when you are in the center beneath it.  

Few hundred feet northeast of it, there is a serpent like curvy pedestrian bridge designed by the award-winning architect Frank Gehry.  Continuing on east a little bit, one reaches the shore of Lake Michigan and gets an incredible panoramic view of the lake and Chicago skyline, see photo below.

 

When you look at the skyline of Chicago, you will quickly realize that you are at a special place – the landscape of the city center is an art itself.  Indeed, with the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 that destroyed almost all the buildings of the downtown, Chicago School of architects wrote the history of modern architectures by designing and building skyscrapers with steel frames and glasses from ashes.  Till today, Chicago architecture remains a tall benchmark for major cities of the world.  For more information, see the Wikipedia entry Architecture of Chicago and the references thereof.  A city architecture walking tour is rewarding.  Along the way, you will also see many wonderful public arts and monuments that are not frequently seen in American cities.

Like all major cities in U.S., Chicago has many ethnic neighborhood including Little Italy, Greek town, Chinatown, etc.  If you ride on the Red Line of Chicago trains heading north, you can reach the Argyle station (see photo to the right with the special roof) where Little Vietnam is located at.  The area was initially a “new” Chinatown but the demography changed as a result of post-Vietnam war immigration.  Within few blocks of the station, there are numerous shops, restaurants offering authentic Vietnamese (and some Chinese) food and goods.  I had my lunch at Pho Xe Tang , the best pho I ever had in U.S.!

Another important ethnic group of Chicago is Irish-Americans who have been very active in politics.  A case in point, Irish-Americans Richard Daley father and son together have served as Chicago Mayor for 42 out of the last 60 years!   When we were in Chicago last weekend, there happened to be celebrations for St Patrick’s Day including a parade and the dyeing of the Chicago River.  Look at the photos below, have you ever seen any river that looks as green?  There were many "green" people walking around with fabulous head pieces. 

One shouldn’t leave Chicago without a taste of the Chicago Blues.  Personally, I am not crazy about it.  But I do like very much the early Saturday Night Live crew such as the nutty late John Beluhsi and Dan Ackroyd and their 1980 movie The Blues Brothers in which they performed quite a few Chicago blues.  Here is one of them. Click Everybody Needs Somebody to Love to watch this YouTube video of the incredible performance by John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd in the movie. 

Talk to you soon!

Professor Helen Benham

As I mentioned in my last Octobor’s blog Piano piano that I had began my venture of learning to play piano by enrolling into a Group Piano I class at the nearby Brookdale Community College.  It turned out that the class was not as hard as I had feared.  I did manage to pass the evaluations and continued onto the next level – Piano II this semester.  By the end of this semester, I would have learned all the elementary stuffs including all major and minor keys and scales, transposition, fingering, two-hands, pedaling, simple chords and progressions.  Hopefully I will be able to play few scores with two hands and right foot and perhaps I can try to compose a few measures of simple music.

Brookdale Community College has a small but wonderful music department with three full time faculties, all with impressive credentials and specialties.  My piano instructor is Professor Helen Benham who has been with the college for 37 years.  She is an accomplished pianist, coming through the renowned Oberlin and Julliard schools, and had performed in numerous concerts internationally.  The class is held in a “lab” where there are 16 upright pianos.  The composition of the students is quite diverse in terms of age, ethnicity, gender, and yes, discipline.  Some students just can’t stop hitting the keys whenever they got a chance despite repeated pleas from the instructor.  Once in a while, Helen would lose her patience and yelled while hitting the cover of a piano with her hand in anger.   That dramatic display would quiet those students down for a little while and then the cycle repeats.  It is unfortunate that teachers have to spend so much extra energy to manage the class and waste everyone’s time.

The Music Department held its semi-annual Faculty Recital the Sunday two weeks ago at College’s Performing Arts Center.  The Experimental Theater was filled with audience as well as air of excitement and anticipation by 7 p.m.  Professor Benham opened the Recital with two piano works by French composer Gabriel Urbain Faure (1845-1924) who had a major influence on 20^th century composers with his harmonic and melodic language.   The pieces were Nocturne Op 33, No. 1 in E-flat minor (1875) and Impromptu in F minor.  Then she and an adjunct faculty Nancy Merkel performed together Dolly suite, a piano duet, or more precisely Piano in Four Hands, also by Faure.  This is the first time I heard Faure’s Nocturne and I just loved it.  It is one of the thirteen nocturnes Faure composed in his life.  One can literally “see” the image of the night as notes flow softly through the keys and air, while the theme by the left hand keeps reappearing to reminding us as the night progresses steadily.  To listen to the Nocturne performed by Vlado Perlemuter, a well-known French pianist and student of Faure at the Paris Conservatoir, hit the YouTube link here.

The evening was interrupted by Professor Keith Heinmann after the piano performances who made the surprise announcement that Professor Benham will be retiring at the end of this academic year and that the rest of the evening program will thus be changed into one that pays tributes to Professor Benham!  While I have attended many retirement parties before where people gave speeches and roasted the guest of honor in words, musicians do it in music!  Carly McIIvaine, another adjunct faculty sang a beautiful and untitled song (which could be called “I love you forever”) that she wrote for this occasion.  Adjunct faculty John Balme and Cynthia Springsteen, after their performance of Schubert’s songs, brought their 20+ people Concordian Chorale to perform.  After the intermission, Professors Barbara Baron, Joe Accurso and his Art Deco Jazz Ensemble brought memory of their long associations with Professor Benham that were presented with lively stories and improvisations of jazz music and songs.  It took me several seconds to figure out what was “533422” (a hint: it is referring to the five fingers of right hand when playing on keyboard with the thumb being finger “1”).

I can’t think of a more fitting way to pay tributes to Professor Benham’s 37 year career at the Brookdale.  What a wonderful way for friends and colleagues to say good bye to her with music and creativity, their common language and love.  I will miss Helen Benham for her dedication and teaching as one of her “young” and last piano class students.

Talk to you soon!

Will China Rule the World?

In my last blog, I talked about my reactions to the recent book When China Rules the World by Martin Jacques.  At the end, I raised the more important and immediate question of WILL China Rule the World (and how could China get there) since the future is far from being obvious.   The expectation that China will become dominant in the world has largely based on the numerical extrapolation of its economic development for the last two decades.  However such a naive extrapolation is flawed; for one, the high rate of growth cannot be sustained indefinitely.  One must look deeper to better understand the likelihood with the key contributing forces and obstacles.

The recent success of China has a lot to do with its massive population.  At 1.3+ billion, China is the most populated country on earth.  In fact, China had been one of the largest unified country and economy in much of its history since having significant manpower and arable land is crucial for economy in agricultural societies.  Industrial Revolution of the 18^th century changed the equation significantly with automation and inventions of new technologies.  The subsequent restructuring of the production and service processes resulting from the forever cost reductions and competitions brought eventually the globalization of resources and supply chain today.  With its reform beginning in 1978 under Deng XiaoPing away from Maoism, China has managed to attract significant foreign investments and stands now as the biggest world factory with its huge and eager workforce.  What had happened thus far was not too different from other “Asian miracles” other than scale, starting with Japan after WWII that was followed by the Asian Tigers including South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia.   To give you some idea, in this process, China’s agricultural workforce has decreased from around 80% to 50% of the population (that translates to approximately 200 million people!) as urban centers and factories expand at amazing rates.  And in recent years, China’s mobile phone subscription was growing annually by about 60 million which is almost the total population of France.

To achieve the goal of drastically improving standards of living with such a massive population, China adopted draconian measures in population control (One Child per Family) for the urban area in this same period.  30 years later, one begins to see the resulting shift of demographics and looming challenges.  Cheaper and younger factory labors are no longer easily available and wage has been rising rapidly in recent years.  Beneficiaries are the neighboring countries such as Vietnam who is climbing the same economic ladder. According to UN projections, The percentage of older (60+) people of the country is expected to reach close to 30% in another 30 years (by year 2040) with a 50% working population (20-59 years old).   Comparable statistics for U.S. are more like 20% and 50% respectively who has already been experiencing increasing fiscal stress in Social Security and Medicare programs.  As China embarked on developing its health care and welfare programs for elderly, will China be able to become sufficiently rich before its population ages much further?  Keeping in mind that although China’s total GDP is catching up with U.S.’ (behind by only 40%), China’s per capita GDP today is still at less than 10% of U.S.’.

As I mentioned in my last blog, by looking at those well-understood statistics, clean energy will be the most severe roadblock that challenges China’s quest for a standards of living comparable to developed nations.   It is not a secret that China has been working very hard for quite some time to aggressively secure energy and natural resources from abroad.  It is also not surprising that “go green” is in its vision of the future.   The next dominant power will be decided by the success or failure of the pursuits in this domain; whoever innovates and dominates the clean energy technology and develop alternate quality life style will shape the economic order of the world of the future.  To be the one, China will need stronger Science and Technology bases and will have to improve dramatically its fundamental research capability.  Only then, it will be in the position to break through the energy barrier and elevate itself from being merely a follower and cheaper supplier to leading economic powers.  That is, the 64 trillion dollar question is will China hit the clean energy barrier before its total and per capita GDP reach a much higher level?

Let us assume that China will overcome this challenge and be on its way to becoming the largest economic power with a wealthy society.  What history and human nature have shown us repeatedly is stability and prosperity cannot be sustained without an effective and cohesive social and political system where the parity of rich and poor is modest and majority of the people has a sense of participation and ownership of their own destiny.   The progression is certain and there is no exception: economic successes will inevitably encourage and lead to a greater desire for political empowerment.  There are plenty of evidences that the process has already begun in China some time ago.  It is a matter of time before further reform and evolution of its social and current political system becomes a central issue that would ultimately determine IF China will dominate the world.   In addition, China will need to have a set of universal values that aspires its citizens and others, just like what America did.

The challenge is not totally new for China.   Last time the debate took place under a different circumstance; it happened after the humiliating of the 1839-42 and 1856-60 Opium Wars that served wakeup calls to the isolated and ignorant Imperial China.  A number of different ideas were proposed, debated, and some attempted for the subsequent 100+ years through the invasions and partial occupations of China by foreign powers, the destruction of monarchy, and a bloody civil war.  One leading school of thoughts, led by Zhang Zhidong張之洞 (1837-1909), championed “Chinese learning for the essential principles, Western learning for the practical application” [中學為體,西學為用] that would preserve the traditional Chinese culture and social political system while adopting western industrialization and technologies.  The idea was similar to “Japanese spirit, Western learning” 和魂洋才, albeit more limited, of the Meiji Restoration in Japan of 1868 whose “success” was clearly demonstrated in its military dominance and impressive industrial-military complex that terrorized East and Southeast Asia in following decades.  Such an approach was more compatible with Japan that has many similar geopolitical attributes to those of the Western colonial sea powers.  It would not be viable for China then, nor today or tomorrow.  Note Japan has never been able to go beyond its initial military triumphs and economic successes.  It chose to retain its own unique essential values.  Without forming a set of universal values, Japan has not and will not likely to become a dominant country.

Another school of thought was led by Liang Qichao 梁啟超(1873-1929) who went much further in incorporating learnings from the West and advocated Constitutional Monarchy form of democracy.  Although supported by Emperor Guangxu (1871-1908), the ill-fated attempt to overhaul the political system was crushed quickly in the so-called Hundred Days' Reform in 1898.   A decade later, Republic of China was established after the armed revolution of 1911 that brought down the monarchy and ended the 2000+ years of Imperial China.

The issue and debate did not end there, nor a century later today.   May Fourth Movement of 1919 brought it to the next level.  It suggested the root problem is much deeper - it is a cultural one and as such, the problem cannot be addressed by transplanting Western values, teachings, and systems.  As the well-known contemporary Chinese writer and thinker Liu ZaiFu劉再復 noted in his 1988/2002 book Tradition and the Chinese, the Movement was nothing short of a cultural revolution during which some had called for critical self-inspection and the denouncement of the traditional culture and values, as exemplified by the work of Lu Xun魯迅.   Unfortunately, Japanese invasions and civil wars swept the nation before any viable ideas was fully developed and experimented.   Like some psychotherapy, destroying one’s values without rebuilding a better one effectively could do more harms than good; the decade long Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976 in China demonstrated that clearly.  Interestingly, Confucianism, the symbol of the traditional system, was the target in both times but is currently the hottest civil topics in China.  Further, China has co-sponsored the establishment of hundreds of non-profit Confucius Institutes worldwide to promote Chinese language and culture.  Is it a signal China plans to build its future social and political system on top of the Confucianism?  Or is it a conspiracy like some suggested that China sees Confucianism like the Imperial China did as a justification of the single party rule forever?

What are the alternatives?  One can find easily two relevant reference examples.  Taiwan (Republic of China) began to move in 80’s from single-party rule (by the Nationalist Party founded by Dr. Sun Yat-Sen) to one modeled after Western multi-party democracy after two decades of phenomenal economic growth.  Although it is too early to judge given its unique sovereignty issues, Taiwan has been struggling for some time to maintain its forward movement with many of the flaws and deficiency stemming from the combination of the traditional social system and an ineffective democratic political system.  Another example is Singapore, another prosperous Confucian state where 70% of the population are of Chinese ancestry.  It was a British colony between 1819-1940) and has been under a de facto single party rule (by People’s Action Party) since its self-governing in 1959.   It has a limited freedom as stated in its constitution.   It holds regular elections with a parliament.  It is questionable however that the Singapore model can be scaled up by orders of magnitudes in size and diversity from a city state of 4+ million skewed population which excels in few niches.

Of course, there is always the prime model of U.S., the current super power of the world.  Its political system and declared universal values are familiar to many in the world: liberty, equality, rule of law, electoral democracy, human rights such as freedom of speech, just to name a few.  In recent years however, the system has begun to show signs of decline.  Its ability to handle stressed and declining economy and diverging ideologies is being questioned seriously.  Politically empowered mass are either lost and resigned, or reacted with flawed instincts and logic.  In his insightful recent Feb 9th interview with Charlie Rose, Dave Brooks, a prominent conservative journalist and writer expressed his pessimism about the American governing system that is so gridlocked.  He pointed out that “Corruption of Process” in American Democracy – inability to think long term, to face reality, to push cost onto others, is largely responsible for the deterioration of the country.  I might add that the decline of independent press – the fourth pillar (in addition to the executive, legislative, judiciary branches) of the country – has a lot to do with it as well.   Can one fix the government system without addressing the social system as David Brooks believes?   President Obama seems to think otherwise.  It is not a coincident that responsibility and respect, two important virtues that Obama keeps emphasizing are high on traditional Chinese values.  The reason for such an emphasis is, I believe, Obama’s recognition of the need for a better balance of individual and social goods in U.S. which has been tilted too to the individuals and special interests under the names of individualism and free market economy which work well only when there are plenty resources to go around.

Indeed, the core issue is an old one: it is simply about the delicate balance of conflicting individual and social goods.  To achieve and to sustain its dominance, China, opposite of U.S., will necessarily need to move further away from collectivism to unleash the individual creativity and drive for success.  There is nothing wrong per se with the core values of Confucianism but it does need to be expanded and adapted.  Filial Piety 孝 is not a unique Confucian value.  It is universal, as evident that it is one of the commandments of Judeo-Christian as well as Islamic religions.  Ren or benevolence仁 (or as Peter Boodberg suggested, "co-humanity"), loving and fulfilling one's responsibilities toward others”, is based on empathy that is universal as well and goes to the heart of humanity.  Having said that, what Imperial China had done was to perfect an autocratic hierarchy, with the helps from smart Confucian scholars, where the Imperial House sits on top in a patriarchy role, completed with supporting interlocked systems.  The obvious self interest and flaw is the assumption that the top of the hierarchy would be benevolent and competent.  When it is not (which is often the case), there is unfortunately no effective way to correct and/or replace the top.  For that reason alone, autocratic system will never be as robust as a democratic one although it can be much more effective at times.  It is not a viable option but it does not invalidate all the ideals of Confucianism.

In short, in addition to the economic challenge mentioned earlier, the next critical challenge for China is to develop a new cohesive social and political system which I would call a modern Confucianism - one that recognizes applicable core values of Confucianism but enlarged and advanced with modern Western philosophies and experiences.   It must come necessarily with companion structures and mechanisms both in hard (government) and soft (social) powers that can effectively govern and resolving conflicting priorities of individuals and the society.  While Chinese democracy does not have to be the same as the American’s, it must empower all but in favor of none while balancing the elitism and populism which American democracy had failed to do.  The only obstacle stands in the way is the threat of "Spirit of Ah Q" (阿Q精神) as depicted in Lu Xun’s famed 90 year old novel The True Story of Ah Q阿Q正傳 “that Chinese could choose not to face up to reality and deceive themselves into believing they are successful and superior to others”.  There are encouraging signs though; recently in China, the Chinese biopic movie Confucius was beaten in box office by the high tech futuristic adventure movie Avatar, despite active intervention and promotion of the Chinese government!

Talk to you soon!