On China

China is the enemy of the United States now. Most of my life, China was not a country that I thought much of. In High School, I was taught a very Japanophile view of history. I had also adopted the prejudices of South Koreans toward the Chinese. The Chinese men were lazy, fat and slow. Sometimes, I faced racism from Chinese people. "You Korean," one Chinese waiter insisted. I guess he was trying to say that Koreans were very proud people for such a small nation. I kind of understand the racism of Chinese toward the Koreans. We Koreans really piss them off. Our arrogance, pride, our know-it-all attitude challenges their sense of superiority. I think that's a good thing.

When I attended the lectures by special speakers in the East Asian Studies at Harvard University, I was really interested in understanding historical problems and solutions to those problems. In one of the first lectures, a Chinese speaker was talking about "strategic partnership" between China and the United States. He never quite defined what "strategic partnership" meant. I got a sense over time that "strategic partnership" meant perhaps not criticizing each other, never mentioning Tibet, and not interfering with each other's plans. I really cannot believe that I listened to this lectures without blowing up. There's a kind of East Asian political correctness that makes it impossible to approach any issue that would offend a country. There was a Harvard professor there who looked like Einstein who was very kind and gracious and he tried to get the man to define what "strategic partnership" meant. There was no progress.

China, I believe, will never go to war. War has been an embarrassment to the Chinese. They lost against Japan. They lost against England. They lost against small island-states. They will engage in an ideological war by using Marxism to support authoritarianism. Authoritarianism is a form of government that can move much faster than a democracy, but the Chinese government has done little about the environment, world hunger or other pressing problems. If the intent of authoritarian governments is to support other authoritarian governments, then I really wonder where this logic is going. Economically, in the long run, is this feasible?