Yet Confucians disagree on the nature of human beings The Chinese idiom, 江山易改，本性难移 (jiangshan yi gai, benxing nan yi), tells us: while nature as in rivers and mountains (jiangshan) changes, though very slowly, human nature (benxing) is difficult to change. It’s more difficulty to change human nature than nature to change the course of a river or move mountains…

Despite much of the current discussion about China’s “dual circulation” strategy centering on increasing domestic consumption and developing indigenous technologies, particularly chip-making, I think, in order to get a better understanding we would have to treat both domestic consumption and exports as one process of circulation. The “dual circulation” connotes…

The obsession stems from a weakened faith in democracy Since they began in June, Hong Kong protests are regularly making front-page news in the West. However, the endless coverage of the protests has nothing meaningful to say about Hong Kong Chinese or the People’s Republic of China or their delicate…

The neoliberal equates American dream to an endless cycle of work — In an op-ed early this month in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, the author of The World Is Flat, sees the biggest threat to America is Americans themselves, particularly you and me, who are apparently disgruntled and disillusioned, because we have failed to achieve the American dream. …

Heirs of America and a new American identity — A few days ago, US President Donald Trump was reported to have told several Congresswomen to go back to their countries. The response to the Trump’s verbal assault has been just as strong. Paul Krugman of The New York Times denounced the President’s behavior, calling it “Racism Comes Out of…

A note on increased global competition, weakened unions and massive mergers — Recently, Quartz posted an article, “The short but destructive history of mass layoffs”, writing that mass layoffs are a recent phenomenon and that the media tend to focus on the struggles of the employers rather than those of the fired workers, who are often treated like lepers to be removed…

Moving beyond the mainstream race discourse — James Baldwin, the most prolific writer of black-white relations in America, once made a contrarian but crucial observation about racism: It has been vivid to me for many years that what we call a race problem here is not a race problem at all: to keep calling it that is…

Seeking primarily to dethrone Trump, the rich’s proposed wealth tax is unlikely to radically alter massive wealth inequality — Recently, a small group of ultra-wealthy individuals, including Chris Hughes, the co-founder of Facebook, has issued a missive asking the American government to increase their taxes. Eli Broad, an American billionaire, in The New York Times op-ed, also joined in the public relations campaign, writing:

The relative decline of Hong Kong’s economic status — The recent protests in Hong Kong over the extradition bill are not just about the “fear and anger over the erosion of civil liberties”, as reported by the international media. If one argues for the rights of dissidents, it must be done for both Chinese and non-Chinese political dissidents. Hong…