The day is upon us. First, if you’re in Beijing, the Beijinger has a list of places you can watch the election results tomorrow morning. Brussels opens the earliest, and probably has the most TVs (not to mention the biggest, a projection screen). Cuju, though small, opens at 8 am and has the best coffee deal on the list: 25 yuan for all-you-can-drink. They’ll also be serving a special beer that’s apparently a “replica” of Obama’s White House Honey Ale.
To the news: NPR’s Louisa Lim moderated a debate on who picks the better leaders, the US or China. Martin Jacques, author of When China Rules the World, wrote in BBC that the answer is definitely China. Sam Crane of The Useless Tree and Charlie Custer of China Geeks disagree. Meanwhile, “more than 63% of Chinese people and 86% of Japanese want current US President Barack Obama to win a second term, a survey conducted by the Hong Kong division of market research institute Ipsos and Agene France-Presse said,” reports Want China Times.
But we know what you really came here for: more images of Obama interposed with Mao, a la OBAMAO (more via China Whisper):
POSTSCRIPT via Five-Thirty-Eight:
Martin Jacques and his articles are nothing but crap. Seriously he would be the ever obedient 50 cent party dog, if he were just born in the mainland.
ook I have no problem with China being a superpower someday if it grows up and asks accordingly, but it’s got a long way to go.
agree. also:
- “China is not primarily a nation-state but a civilisation-state.” No it’s not. It’s a multinational state, as the constitution says. Also, China has gone through 100 years of transformation from civilisation to nation.
- “Between the 1840s and 1949, China was occupied by the colonial powers.” False. Most of China was not. Even the Japanese didn’t control much more than the Eastern coast, let alone the Treaty Ports era.
- Satisfaction do not equal legitimacy. E.g. the level of satisfaction in the work of the US Congress is not the same as the level of legitimacy of the political system among the population.
- “The country is huge and governance is extremely difficult.” False, policies matter, not size. Case in point: Japan has better governance than Italy, but double the population.
- “The fact that the Chinese state enjoys such an exalted position in society lends it enormous authority, a remarkable ubiquity and great competence.” How did “competence” end up in this sentence?
- “China is still a poor developing country.” Note: “China’s wealth concentration has by far exceeded that of the US, with 1 percent of the welathiest Chinese families being accountable for 41.4 percent of the country’s entire wealth.” 41 per cent!! To call it “a poor developing country” is very misleading. The Beijing Olympics are the olympics of a poor country?
- “The competence of the state is little talked about or really valued in the West, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world.” This is just plain bulls**t.
- “As China’s dramatic ascent continues – which it surely will -…” I like when these China lovers are more confident than China’s rulers themselves.
“Meanwhile, ”more than 63% of Chinese people and 86% of Japanese want current US President Barack Obama to win a second term, a survey conducted by the Hong Kong division of market research institute Ipsos and Agene France-Presse said,” reports Want China Times.”
Really? What of this:
http://news.uk.msn.com/us-elections-2012/entire-planet-supports-obama-except-china/